SALTED WITH FIRE

BY

GEORGE MACDONALD

CHAPTER I

"Whaur are ye aff til this bonny mornin', Maggie, my doo?" said thesoutar, looking up from his work, and addressing his daughter as she stoodin the doorway with her shoes in her hand. 

"Jist ower to Stanecross, wi' yer leave, father, to speir the mistress fora goupin or twa o' chaff: yer bed aneth ye's grown unco hungry-like. "

"Hoot, the bed's weel eneuch, lassie!"

"Na, it's onything but weel eneuch! It's my pairt to luik efter my ainfather, and see there be nae k-nots aither in his bed or his parritch. "

"Ye're jist yer mither owre again, my lass!--Weel, I winna miss ye thatsair, for the minister 'ill be in this mornin'. "

"Hoo ken ye that, father?"

"We didna gree vera weel last nicht. "

"I canna bide the minister--argle-barglin body!"

"Toots, bairn! I dinna like to hear ye speyk sae scornfulike o' the gudeman that has the care o' oor sowls!"

"It wad be mair to the purpose ye had the care o' his!"

"Sae I hae: hasna ilkabody the care o' ilk ither's?"

"Ay; but he preshumes upo' 't--and ye dinna; there's the differ!"

"Weel, but ye see, lassie, the man has nae insicht--nane to speak o', thatis; and it's pleased God to mak him a wee stoopid, and some thrawn(_twisted_). He has nae notion even o' the wark I put intil thae wee bitsheenie (_little shoes_) o' his--that I'm this moment labourin ower!"

"It's sair wastit upo' him 'at caana see the thoucht intil't!"

"Is God's wark wastit upo' you and me excep' we see intil't, andun'erstan't, Maggie?"

The girl was silent. Her father resumed. 

"There's three concernt i' the matter o' the wark I may be at: first, myain duty to the wark--that's me; syne him I'm working for--that's theminister; and syne him 'at sets me to the wark--ye ken wha that is: whilko' the three wad ye hae me lea' oot o' the consideration?"

For another moment the girl continued silent; then she said--

"Ye maun be i' the richt, father! I believe 't, though I canna jist _see_'t. A body canna like a'body, and the minister's jist the ae man I cannabide. "

"Ay could ye, gi'en ye lo'ed the _ane_ as he oucht to be lo'ed, and as yemaun learn to lo'e him. "

"Weel I'm no come to that wi' the minister yet!"

"It's a trowth--but a sair pity, my dautie _(daughter--darling)_. "

"He provokes me the w'y that he speaks to ye, father--him 'at's no fit totie the thong o' your shee!"

"The Maister would lat him tie his, and say _thank ye_!"

"It aye seems to me he has sic a scrimpit way o' believin'! It's no likebelievin' at a'! He winna trust him for naething that he hasna his ainword, or some ither body's for! Ca' ye that lippenin' til him?"

It was now the father's turn to be silent for a moment. Then he said, --

"Lea' the judgin' o' him to his ain maister, lassie. I ha'e seen him whilessair concernt for ither fowk. "

"'At they wouldna hand wi' _him, _ and war condemnt in consequence--wasnathat it?"

"I canna answer ye that, bairn. "

"Weel, I ken he doesna like you--no ae wee bit. He's aye girdin at ye toither fowk!"

"May be: the mair's the need I sud lo'e him. "

"But noo _can_ ye, father?"

"There's naething, o' late, I ha'e to be sae gratefu' for to _Him_ as thatI can. But I confess I had lang to try sair!"

"The mair I was to try, the mair I jist couldna. "

"But ye could try; and He could help ye!"

"I dinna ken; I only ken that sae ye say, and I maun believe ye. Nane themair can I see hoo it's ever to be broucht aboot. "

"No more can I, though I ken it can be. But just think, my ain Maggie, hoowould onybody ken that ever ane o' 's was his disciple, gien we war ayeargle-barglin aboot the holiest things--at least what the minister coontsthe holiest, though may be I think I ken better? It's whan twa o' 's strivethat what's ca'd a schism begins, and I jist winna, please God--and it doesplease him! He never said, Ye maun a' think the same gait, but he did say, Ye man a' loe are anither, and no strive!"

"Ye dinna aye gang to his kirk, father!"

"Na, for I'm jist feared sometimes lest I should stop loein him. It matterslittle about gaein to the kirk ilka Sunday, but it matters a heap aboot ayeloein are anither; and whiles he says things aboot the mind o' God, sicthat it's a' I can dee to sit still. "

"Weel, father, I dinna believe that I can lo'e him ony the day; sae, wi'yer leave, I s' be awa to Stanecross afore he comes. "

"Gang yer wa's, lassie, and the Lord gang wi' ye, as ance he did wi' themthat gaed to Emmaus. "

With her shoes in her hand, the girl was leaving the house when her fathercalled after her--

"Hoo's folk to ken that I provide for my ain, whan my bairn gangs unshod?Tak aff yer shune gin ye like when ye're oot o' the toon. "

"Are ye sure there's nae hypocrisy aboot sic a fause show, father?" askedMaggie, laughing, "I maun hide them better!"

As she spoke she put the shoes in the empty bag she carried for the chaff. "There's a hidin' o' what I hae--no a pretendin' to hae what I haena!--Is'be hame in guid time for yer tay, father. --I can gang a heap better withootthem!" she added, as she threw the bag over her shoulder. "I'll put them onwhan I come to the heather, " she concluded. 

"Ay, ay; gang yer wa's, and lea' me to the wark ye haena the grace toadverteeze by weirin' o' 't. "

Maggie looked in at the window as she passed it on her way, to get a lastsight of her father. The sun was shining into the little bare room, and hershadow fell upon him as she passed him; but his form lingered clear in theclose chamber of her mind after she had left him far. And it was not hershadow she had seen, but the shadow, rather, of a great peace that restedconcentred upon him as he bowed over his last, his mind fixed indeed uponhis work, but far more occupied with the affairs of quite another region. Mind and soul were each so absorbed in its accustomed labour that never dideither interfere with that of the other. His shoemaking lost nothing whenhe was deepest sunk in some one or other of the words of his Lord, which hesought eagerly to understand--nay, I imagine his shoemaking gained thereby. In his leisure hours, not a great, he was yet an intense reader; but it wasnothing in any book that now occupied him; it was the live good news, theman Jesus Christ himself. In thought, in love, in imagination, that mandwelt in him, was alive in him, and made him alive. This moment He was withhim, had come to visit him--yet was never far from him--was present alwayswith an individuality that never quenched but was continually developinghis own. For the soutar absolutely believed in the Lord of Life, wasalways trying to do the things he said, and to keep his words abiding inhim. Therefore was he what the parson called a mystic, and was the mostpractical man in the neighbourhood; therefore did he make the best shoes, because the Word of the Lord abode in him. 

The door opened, and the minister came into the kitchen. The soutar alwaysworked in the kitchen, to be near his daughter, whose presence neverinterrupted either his work or his thought, or even his prayers--whichoften seemed as involuntary as a vital automatic impulse. 

"It's a grand day!" said the minister. "It aye seems to me that just onsuch a day will the Lord come, nobody expecting him, and the folk allfollowing their various callings--as when the flood came and astonishedthem. "

The man was but reflecting, without knowing it, what the soutar had beensaying the last time they encountered; neither did he think, at the moment, that the Lord himself had said something like it first. 

"And I was thinkin, this vera meenute, " returned the soutar, "sic a bonnyday as it was for the Lord to gang aboot amang his ain fowk. I was thinkinmaybe he was come upon Maggie, and was walkin wi' her up the hill toStanecross--nearer til her, maybe, nor she could hear or see or think!"

"Ye're a deal taen up wi' vain imaiginins, MacLear!" rejoined the minister, tartly. "What scriptur hae ye for sic a wanderin' invention, o' nopractical value?"

"'Deed, sir, what scriptur hed I for takin my brakwast this mornin, or onymornin? Yet I never luik for a judgment to fa' upon me for that! I'mthinkin we dee mair things in faith than we ken--but no eneuch! no eneuch!I was thankfu' for't, though, I min' that, and maybe that'll stan' forfaith. But gien I gang on this gait, we'll be beginnin as we left aff lastnicht, and maybe fa' to strife! And we hae to loe ane anither, not accordinto what the ane thinks, or what the ither thinks, but accordin as eachkens the Maister loes the ither, for he loes the twa o' us thegither. "

"But hoo ken ye that he's pleased wi' ye?"

"I said naething aboot that: I said he loes you and me!"

"For that, he maun be pleast wi' ye!"

"I dinna think nane aboot that; I jist tak my life i' my han', and awa' wi''t til _Him_;--and he's never turned his face frae me yet. --Eh, sir! thinkwhat it would be gien ever he did!"

"But we maunna think o' him ither than he would hae us think. "

"That's hoo I'm aye hingin aboot his door, luikin for him. "

"Weel, I kenna what to mak o' ye! I maun jist lea' ye to him!"

"Ye couldna dee a kinder thing! I desire naething better frae man orminister than be left to Him. "

"Weel, weel, see til yersel. "

"I'll see to _him_, and try to loe my neebour--that's you, Mr. Pethrie. I'll hae yer shune ready by Setterday, sir. I trust they'll be worthy o'the feet that God made, and that hae to be shod by me. I trust and believethey'll nowise distress ye, sir, or interfere wi' yer comfort in preachin. I'll fess them hame mysel, gien the Lord wull, and that without fail. "

"Na, na; dinna dee that; lat Maggie come wi' them. Ye wad only be puttin meoot o' humour for the Lord's wark wi' yer havers!"

"Weel, I'll sen' Maggie--only ye wad obleege me by no seein her, for yemicht put _her_ oot o' humour, sir, and she michtna gie yer sermon fairplay the morn!"

The minister closed the door with some sharpness. 

CHAPTER II

In the meantime, Maggie was walking shoeless and bonnetless up the hill tothe farm she sought. It was a hot morning in June, tempered by a wind fromthe north-west. The land was green with the slow-rising tide of the youngcorn, among which the cool wind made little waves, showing the brown earthbetween them on the somewhat arid face of the hill. A few fleecy cloudsshared the high blue realm with the keen sun. As she rose to the top of theroad, the gable of the house came suddenly in sight, and near it a sleepyold gray horse, treading his ceaseless round at the end of a long lever, too listless to feel the weariness of a labour that to him must have seemedunprogressive, and, to anything young, heart-breaking. Nor did it appear togive him any consolation to be aware of the commotion he was causing on theother side of the wall, where a threshing machine of an antiquated sortresponded with multiform movement to the monotony of his round-and-round. 

Near by, a peacock, as conscious of his glorious plumage as indifferent tothe ugliness of his feet, kept time with undulating neck to the motion ofthose same feet, as he strode with stagey gait across the cornyard, now andthen stooping to pick up a stray grain spitefully, and occasionallyerecting his superb neck to give utterance to a hideous cry of satisfactionat his own beauty--a cry as unlike the beauty as ever was discord toharmony. His glory, his legs and his voice, perplexed Maggie with anunanalyzed sense of contradiction and unfitness. 

Radiant with age and light, the old horse stood still just as the suntouched the meridian; the hour of repose and food was come, and he knew it;and at the same moment the girl, passing one of the green-painted doors ofthe farm house, stopped at the other, the kitchen one. It stood open, andin answer to her modest knock, a ruddy maid appeared, with a question inher eyes, and a smile on her lips at sight of the shoemaker's Maggie, whomshe knew well. Maggie asked if She might see the mistress. 

"Here's soutar's Maggie wanting ye, mem!" said the maid and MistressBlatherwick who was close at hand, came; to which Maggie humbly butconfidently making her request had it as kindly granted, and followed herto the barn to fill her pock with the light plumy covering of the husk ofthe oats, the mistress of Stonecross helping her the while and talking toher as she did so--for the soutar and his daughter were favourites withher and her husband, and they had not seen either of them for some while. 

"Ye used to ken oor Maister Jeames I' the auld land-syne, Maggie!" for thetwo has played together as children in the same school although growth anddifference in station had gradually put and end to their intimacy so thatit became the mother to refer to him with circumspection, seeing that, inher eyes at least, Maister Jeames was now far on the way to becoming agreat man, being a divinity student; for in the Scotch church, although itsets small store on apostolitic descent, every Minister, until he has shownhimself eccentic or incapable of interesting a congregation, is regardedwith quite as much respect as in England is accorded to the claimant of aphantom-priesthood; and therefore, prospectively, Jeames was to his mothera man of no little note. Maggie remembered how, when a boy, he had liked totalk with her father; and how her father would listen to him with acurious look on his rugged face, while the boy set forth the commonplacesof a lifeless theology with an occasional freshness of logicalpresentation that at least interested himself. But she remembered alsothat she had never heard the soutar on his side make any attempt to layopen to the boy his stores of what one or two in the place, one or twoonly, counted wisdom and knowledge. 

"He's a gey clever laddie, " he had said once to Maggie, "and gien he getshis een open i' the coorse o' the life he's hardly yet ta'en hand o', he'lldoobtless see something; but he disna ken yet that there's onything rael tobe seen, ootside or inside o' him!" When he heard that he was going tostudy divinity, he shook his head, and was silent. 

"I'm jist hame frae peyin him a short veesit, " Mrs. Blatherwick went on. "Icam hame but twa nichts ago. He's lodged wi' a dacent widow in ArthurStreet, in a flat up a lang stane stair that gangs roun and roun till yecome there, and syne gangs past the door and up again. She taks in han' toluik efter his claes, and sees to the washin o' them, and does her best tohand him tidy; but Jeamie was aye that partic'lar aboot his appearance! Andthat's a guid thing, special in a minister, wha has to set an example! Iwas sair pleased wi' the auld body. "

There was one in the Edinburgh lodging, however, of whom Mrs. Blatherwickhad but a glimpse, and of whom, therefore, she had made no mention to herhusband any more than now to Maggie MacLear; indeed, she had taken solittle notice of her that she could hardly be said to have seen her at all--a girl of about sixteen, who did far more for the comfort of her aunt'stwo lodgers than she who reaped all the advantage. If Mrs. Blatherwick hadlet her eyes rest upon her but for a moment, she would probably havelooked again; and might have discovered that she was both a good-lookingand graceful little creature, with blue eyes, and hair as nearly black asthat kind of hair, both fine and plentiful, ever is. She might then havediscovered as well a certain look of earnestness and service that would atfirst have attracted her for its own sake, and then repelled her forJames's; for she would assuredly have read in it what she would havecounted dangerous for him; but seeing her poorly dressed, and lookinguntidy, which at the moment she could not help, the mother took her for anordinary maid-of-all-work, and never for a moment doubted that her son mustsee her just as she did. He was her only son; her heart was full ofambition for him; and she brooded on the honour he was destined to bringher and his father. The latter, however, caring less for his good looks, had neither the same satisfaction in him nor an equal expectation from him. Neither of his parents, indeed, had as yet reaped much pleasure from hisexistence, however much one of them might hope for in the time to come. There were two things indeed against such satisfaction or pleasure--thatJames had never been open-hearted toward them, never communicative as tohis feelings, or even his doings; and--which was worse--that he had longmade them feel in him a certain unexpressed claim to superiority. Nor wouldit have lessened their uneasiness at this to have noted that the existenceof such an implicit claim was more or less evident in relation to every onewith whom he came in contact, manifested mainly by a stiff, incommunicative reluctance, taking the form now of a pretended absorptionin his books, now of contempt for any sort of manual labour, even to thesaddling of the pony he was about to ride; and now and always by anaffectation of proper English, which, while successful as to grammar andaccentuation, did not escape the ludicrous in a certain stiltedness of toneand inflection, from which intrusion of the would-be gentleman, his father, a simple, old-fashioned man, shrank with more of dislike than he waswilling to be conscious of. 

Quite content that, having a better education than himself, his son shouldboth be and show himself superior, he could not help feeling that these hisways of asserting himself were signs of mere foolishness, and especially asconjoined with his wish to be a minister--in regard to which Peter butfeebly sympathized with the general ambition of Scots parents. Full ofsimple paternal affection, whose utterance was quenched by the behaviour ofhis son, he was continuously aware of something that took the shape of animpassable gulf between James and his father and mother. Profoundlyreligious, and readily appreciative of what was new in the perception oftruth, he was, above all, of a great and simple righteousness--full, thatis, of a loving sense of fairplay--a very different thing indeed from thatwhich most of those who count themselves religious mean when they talk ofthe righteousness of God! Little, however, was James able to see of this, or of certain other great qualities in his father. I would not have myreader think that he was consciously disrespectful to either of hisparents, or knew that his behaviour was unloving. He honoured theircharacter, indeed, but shrank from the simplicity of their manners; hethought of them with no lively affection, though not without some kindlyfeeling and much confidence--at the same time regarding himself with stillgreater confidence. He had never been an idler, or disobedient; and hadmade such efforts after theological righteousness as served to bolsterrather than buttress his conviction that he was a righteous youth, andnourished his ignorance of the fact that he was far from being the personof moral strength and value that he imagined himself. The person he saw inthe mirror of his self-consciousness was a very fine and altogethertrustworthy personage; the reality so twisted in its reflection was but adecent lad, as lads go, with high but untrue notions of personal honour, and an altogether unwarranted conviction that such as he admiringlyimagined himself, such he actually was: he had never discovered his trueand unworthy self! There were many things in his life and ways upon whichhad he but fixed eyes of question, he would at once have perceived thatthey were both judged and condemned; but so far, nevertheless, his fatherand mother might have good hope of his future. 

It is folly to suppose that such as follow most the fashions of this worldare more enslaved by them than multitudes who follow them only afar off. These reverence the judgments of society in things of far greaterimportance than the colour or cut of a gown; often without knowing it, theyjudge life, and truth itself, by the falsest of all measures, namely, thejudgment of others falser than themselves; they do not ask what is true orright, but what folk think and say about this or that. James, for instance, altogether missed being a gentleman by his habit of asking himself how, insuch or such circumstances, a gentleman would behave. As the man of honourhe would fain know himself, he would never tell a lie or break a promise;but he had not come to perceive that there are other things as binding asthe promise which alone he regarded as obligatory. He did not, forinstance, mind raising expectations which he had not the least intention offulfilling. 

Being a Scotch lad, it is not to be wondered at that he should turn toTheology as a means of livelihood; neither is it surprising that he shoulddo so without any conscious love to God, seeing it is not in Scotland alonethat untrue men take refuge in the Church, and turn the highest ofprofessions into the meanest, laziest, poorest, and most unworthy, byfollowing it without any genuine call to the same. In any profession, theman must be a poor common creature who follows it without some realinterest in it; but he who without a spark of enthusiasm for it turns tothe Church, is either a "blind mouth, " as Milton calls him--scornfullest ofepithets, or an "old wife" ambitious of telling her fables well; andJames's ambition was of the same contemptible sort--that, namely, ofdistinguishing himself in the pulpit. This, if he had the natural gift ofeloquence, he might well do by its misuse to his own glory; or if he had itnot, he might acquire a spurious facility resembling it, and so be everyway a mere windbag. 

Mr. Petrie, whom it cost the soutar so much care and effort to love, andwho, although intellectually small, was yet a good man, and by no means acoward where he judged people's souls in danger, thought to save the worldby preaching a God, eminently respectable to those who could believe insuch a God, but to those who could not, a God far from lovely because farfrom righteous. His life, nevertheless, showed him in many ways a believerin Him who revealed a very different God indeed from the God he set forth. His faith, therefore, did not prevent him from looking upon the soutar, whobelieved only in the God he saw in Jesus Christ, as one in a state ofrebellion against him whom Jesus claimed as his father. 

Young Blatherwick had already begun to turn his back upon several of thespecial tenets of Calvinism, without, however, being either a better or aworse man because of the change in his opinions. He had cast aside, forinstance, the doctrine of an everlasting hell for the unbeliever; but indoing so he became aware that he was thus leaving fallow a great field forthe cultivation of eloquence; and not having yet discovered any otherequally productive of the precious crop, without which so little was to begained for the end he desired--namely, the praise of men, he thereforekept on, "for the meantime, " sowing and preparing to reap that same field. Mr. Petrie, on the other hand, held the doctrine as absolutely fundamentalto Christianity, and preached it with power; while the soutar, who haddiscarded it from his childhood, positively refused, jealous of strife, toenter into any argument upon it with the disputatious little man. 

As yet, then, James was reading Scotch metaphysics, and reconciling himselfto the concealment of his freer opinions, upon which concealment dependedthe success of his probation, and his license. But the close of his studiesin divinity was now near at hand. 

CHAPTER III

Upon a certain stormy day in the great northern city, preparing for whathe regarded as his career, James sat in the same large, shabbily furnishedroom where his mother had once visited him--half-way up the hideously longspiral stair of an ancient house, whose entrance was in a narrow close. Thegreat clock of a church in the neighbouring street had just begun to strikefive of a wintry afternoon, dark with snow, falling and yet to fall: howoften in after years was he not to hear the ghostly call of that clock, andsee that falling snow!--when a gentle tap came to his door, and the girl Ihave already mentioned came in with a tray and the materials for his mostwelcomed meal, coffee with bread and butter. She set it down in a silencewhich was plainly that of deepest respect, gave him one glance of devotion, and was turning to leave the room, when he looked up from the paper he waswriting, and said--

"Don't be in such a hurry, Isy. Haven't you time to pour out my coffee forme?"

Isy was a small, dark, neat little thing, with finely formed features, anda look of child-like simplicity, not altogether removed from childishness. She answered him first with her very blue eyes full of love and trust, thensaid--

"Plenty o' time, sir. What other have I to do than see that you be at yourease?"

He shoved aside his work, and looking up with some concentration in hisregard, pushed his chair back a little from the table, and rejoined--

"What's the matter with you this last day or two, Isy? You're notaltogether like yourself!"

She hesitated a moment, then answered--

"It can be naething, I suppose, sir, but just that I'm growin older andbeginnin to think aboot things. "

She stood near him. He put his arm round her little waist, and would havedrawn her down upon his knees, but she resisted. 

"I don't see what difference that can make in you all at once, Isy! We'veknown each other so long that there can be no misunderstanding of any sortbetween us. You have always behaved like the good and modest girl you are;and I'm sure you have been most attentive to me all the time I have been inyour aunt's house. "

He spoke in a tone of superior approval. 

"It was my bare duty, and ye hae aye been kinder to me than I could hae hadony richt to expec'. But it's nearhan' ower noo!" she concluded with a sighthat indicated approaching tears, as she yielded a little to the increasedpressure of his arm. 

"What makes you say that?" he returned, giving her a warm kiss, plainlyneither unwelcome nor the first. 

"Dinna ye think it would be better to drop that kin' o' thing the noo, sir?" she said, and would have stood erect, but he held her fast. 

"Why now, more than any time--I don't know for how long? Where does adifference come in? What puts the notion in your pretty little head?"

"It maun come some day, and the langer the harder it'll be!"

"But tell me what has set you thinking about it all at once?"

She burst into tears. He tried to soothe and comfort her, but in strugglingnot to cry she only sobbed the worse. At last, however, she succeeded infaltering out an explanation. 

"Auntie's been tellin me that I maun luik to my hert, so as no to tyne't toye a'thegither! But it's awa a'ready, " she went on, with a fresh outburst, "and it's no manner o' use cryin til't to come back to me. I micht as weelcry upo' the win' as it blaws by me! I canna understan' 't! I ken weelye'll soon be a great man, and a' the toon crushin to hear ye; and I kenjist as weel that I'll hae to sit still in my seat and luik up to ye whaurye stan', no daurin to say a word--no daurin even to think a thoucht lestsomebody sittin aside me should hear't ohn me spoken. For what would it bebut clean impidence o' me to think 'at there was a time when I was sittinwhaur I'm sittin the noo--and thinkin 't i' the vera kirk! I would benearhan' deein for shame!"

"Didn't you ever think, Isy, that maybe I might marry you some day?" saidJames jokingly, confident in the gulf between them. 

"Na, no ance. I kenned better nor that! I never even wusst it, for thatwould be nae freen's wuss: ye would never get ony farther gien ye did! I'mnane fit for a minister's wife--nor worthy o' bein ane! I micht do no thatill, and pass middlin weel, in a sma' clachan wi' a wee bit kirkie--butamang gran' fowk, in a muckle toon--for that's whaur ye're sure to be! Ehme, me! A' the last week or twa I hae seen ye driftin awa frae me, oot andoot to the great sea, whaur never a thoucht o' Isy would come nigh yeagain;--and what for should there? Ye camna into the warl' to think abootme or the likes o' me, but to be a great preacher, and lea' me ahin ye, like a sheaf o' corn ye had jist cuttit and left unbun'!"

Here came another burst of bitter weeping, followed by words whose veryarticulation was a succession of sobs. 

"Eh, me, me! I doobt I hae clean disgraced mysel!" she cried at last, andended, wiping her eyes--in vain, for the tears would keep flowing. 

As to young Blatherwick, I venture to assert that nothing vulgar or low, still less of evil intent, was passing through his mind during thisconfession; and yet what but evil was his unpitying, selfish exultation inthe fact that this simple-hearted and very pretty girl should love himunsought, and had told him so unasked? A true-hearted man would at oncehave perceived and shrunk from what he was bringing upon her: James'svanity only made him think it very natural, and more than excusable inher; and while his ambition made him imagine himself so much her superioras to exclude the least thought of marrying her, it did not prevent himfrom yielding to the delight her confession caused him, or from persuadingher that there was no harm in loving one to whom she must always be dear, whatever his future might bring with it. Isy left the room not a littleconsoled, and with a new hope in possession of her innocent imagination;leaving James exultant over his conquest, and indulging a more definitepleasure than hitherto in the person and devotion of the girl. As to anyconsciousness in him of danger to either of them, it was no more than, onthe shore, the uneasy stir of a storm far out at sea. Had the least thoughtof wronging her invaded his mind, he would have turned from it withabhorrence; yet was he endangering all her peace without giving it onereasonable thought. He was acting with a selfishness too much ingrained tomanifest its own unlovely shape; while in his mind lay all the time ahalf-conscious care to avoid making the girl any promise. 

As to her fitness for a minister's wife, he had never asked himself aquestion concerning it; but in truth she might very soon have grown farfitter for the position than he was for that of a minister. In charactershe was much beyond him; and in breeding and consciousness far more of alady than he of a gentleman--fine gentleman as he would fain know himself. Her manners were immeasurably better than his, because they were simple andaimed at nothing. Instinctively she avoided whatever, had she done it, shewould at once have recognized as uncomely. She did not know thatsimplicity was the purest breeding, yet from mere truth of nature practisedit unknowing. If her words were older-fashioned, that is more provincialthan his, at least her tone was less so, and her utterance was prettierthan if, like him, she had aped an Anglicized mode of speech. James would, I am sure, have admired her more if she had been dressed on Sundays insomething more showy than a simple cotton gown; and I fear that herpoverty had its influence in the freedoms he allowed himself with her. 

Her aunt was a weak as well as unsuspicious woman, who had known betterdays, and pitied herself because they were past and gone. She gave herselfno anxiety as to her niece's prudence, but continued well assured of iteven while her very goodness was conspiring against her safety. It wouldhave required a man, not merely of greater goodness than James, but ofgreater insight into the realities of life as well, to perceive the worthand superiority of the girl who waited upon him with a devotion far moreangelic than servile; for whatever might have seemed to savour of thelatter, had love, hopeless of personal advantage, at the root of it. 

Thus things went on for a while, with a continuous strengthening of thepleasant yet not altogether easy bonds in which Isobel walked, and aconstant increase of the attraction that drew the student to the self-yielding girl; until the appearance of another lodger in the house was themeans of opening Blatherwick's eyes to the state of his own feelings, byoccasioning the birth and recognition of a not unnatural jealousy, which"gave him pause. " On Isy's side there was not the least occasion for thisjealousy, and he knew it; but not the less he saw that, if he did not meanto go further, here he must stop--the immediate result of which was that hebegan to change a little in his behaviour toward her, when at any time shehad to enter his room in ministration to his wants. 

Of this change the poor girl was at once aware, but she attributed it to atemporary absorption in his studies. Soon, however, she could not doubtthat not merely was his voice or his countenance changed toward her, butthat his heart had grown cold, and that he was no longer "friends withher. " For there was another and viler element than mere jealousy concernedin his alteration: he had become aware of a more real danger into which hewas rapidly drifting--that of irrecoverably blasting the very dawn of hisprospects by an imprudent marriage. "To saddle himself with a wife, " as hevulgarily expressed it, before he had gained his license--before even hehad had the poorest opportunity of distinguishing himself in that whereinlay his every hope and ambition of proving his excellence, was a thing notfor a moment to be contemplated! And now, when Isobel asked him insorrowful mood some indifferent question, the uneasy knowledge that he wasabout to increase her sadness made him answer her roughly--a form notunnatural to incipient compunction: white as a ghost she stood a momentsilently staring at him, then sank on the floor senseless. 

Seized with an overmastering repentance that brought back with a rush allhis tenderness, James sprang to her, lifted her in his arms, laid her onthe sofa, and lavished caresses upon her, until at length she recoveredsufficiently to know where she lay--in the false paradise of his arms, withhim kneeling over her in a passion of regret, the first passion he had everfelt or manifested toward her, pouring into her ear words of incoherentdismay--which, taking shape as she revived, soon became promises and vows. Thereupon the knowledge that he had committed himself, and the convictionthat he was henceforth bound to one course in regard to her, wherein heseemed to himself incapable of falsehood, unhappily freed him from theself-restraint then most imperative upon him, and his trust in his ownhonour became the last loop of the snare about to entangle his and her verylife. At the moment when a genuine love would have hastened to surroundthe woman with bulwarks of safety, he ceased to regard himself as hissister's keeper. Even thus did Cain cease to be his brother's keeper, andso slew him. 

But the vengeance on his unpremeditated treachery, for treachery, althoughunpremeditated, it was none the less, came close upon its heels. The momentthat Isy left the room, weeping and pallid, conscious that a miserableshame but waited the entrance of a reflection even now importunate, hethrew himself on the floor, writhing as in the claws of a hundred demons. The next day but one he was to preach his first sermon before his class, in the presence of his professor of divinity! His immediate impulse was torush from the house, and home hot-foot to his mother; and it would havebeen well for him to have done so indeed, confessed all, and turned hisback on the church and his paltry ambition together! But he had never beenopen with his mother, and he feared his father, not knowing the tenderrighteousness of that father's heart, or the springs of love which would atonce have burst open to meet the sorrowful tale of his wretched son; andinstead of fleeing at once to his one city of refuge, he fell but to pacingthe room in hopeless bewilderment; and before long he was searching everycorner of his reviving consciousness, not indeed as yet for anyjustification, but for what palliation of his "fault" might there be found;for it was the first necessity of this self-lover to think well, or atleast endurably, of himself. Nor was it long before a multitude of sneakingarguments, imps of Satan, began to assemble at the agonized cry of hisself-dissatisfaction--for it was nothing more. 

For, in that agony of his, there was no detestation of himself because ofhis humiliation of the trusting Isobel; he did not loathe his abuse of herconfidence, or his having wrapt her in the foul fire-damp of his miserableweakness: the hour of a true and good repentance was for him not yet come;shame only as yet possessed him, because of the failure of his own fanciedstrength. If it should ever come to be known, what contempt would notclothe him, instead of the garments of praise of which he had dreamed allthese years! The pulpit, that goal of his ambition, that field of hisimagined triumphs--the very thought of it now for a time made him feelsick. Still, there at least lay yet a possibility of recovery--not indeedby repentance, of which he did not seek to lay hold, but in the chance thatno one might hear a word of what had happened! Sure he felt, that Isy wouldnever reveal it, and least of all to her aunt! His promise to marry Isy hewould of course keep! Neither would that be any great hardship, if only ithad no consequences. As an immediate thing, however, it was not to bethought of! there could be at the moment no necessity for such an extrememeasure! He would wait and see! he would be guided by events! As to the sinof the thing--how many had not fallen like him, and no one the wiser!Never would he so offend again! and in the meantime he would let it go, andtry to forget it--in the hope that providence now, and at length time, would bury it from all men's sight! He would go on the same as if theuntoward thing had not so cruelly happened, had cast no such cloud over thefair future before him! Nor were his selfish regrets unmingled withannoyance that Isy should have yielded so easily: why had she not aided himto resist the weakness that had wrought his undoing? She was as much toblame as he; and for her unworthiness was he to be left to suffer? Withinan hour he had returned to the sermon under his hand, and was revising itfor the twentieth time, to perfect it before finally committing it tomemory; for so should the lie of his life be crowned with success, andseem the thing it was not--an outcome of extemporaneous feeling! Duringwhat remained of the two days following he spared no labour, and at lastdelivered it with considerable unction, and the feeling that he hadachieved his end. 

Neither of those days did Isy make her appearance in his room, her auntexcusing her apparent neglect with the information that she was in bed witha bad headache, while herself she supplied her place. 

The next day Isy went about her work as usual, but never once looked up. James imagined reproach in her silence, and did not venture to address her, having, indeed, no wish to speak to her, for what was there to be said? Acloud was between them; a great gulf seemed to divide them! He wondered athimself, no longer conscious of her attraction, or of his former delight inher proximity. His resolve to marry her was not yet wavering; he fullyintended to keep his promise; but he must wait the proper time, the rightopportunity for revealing to his parents the fact of his engagement! Aftera few days, however, during which there had been no return to their formerfamiliarity, it was with a fearful kind of relief that he learned she wasgone to pay a visit to a relation in the country. He did not care that shehad gone without taking leave of him, only wondered if she could have saidanything to incriminate him. 

The session came to an end while she was still absent; he took a formalleave of her aunt, and went home to Stonecross. 

His father at once felt a wider division between them than before, and hismother was now compelled, much against her will, to acknowledge to herselfits existence. At the same time he carried himself with less arrogance, andseemed humbled rather than uplifted by his success. 

During the year that followed, he made several visits to Edinburgh, andbefore long received the presentation to a living in the gift of hisfather's landlord, a certain duke who had always been friendly to thewell-to-do and unassuming tenant of one of his largest farms in the north. But during none of these visits did he inquire or hear anything about Isy;neither now, when, without blame he might have taken steps toward thefulfilment of the promise which he had never ceased to regard as binding, could he persuade himself that the right time had come for revealing it tohis parents: he knew it would be a great blow to his mother to learn thathe had so handicapped his future, and he feared the silent face of hisfather at the announcement of it. 

It is hardly necessary to say that he had made no attempt to establish anycorrespondence with the poor girl. Indeed by this time he found himself notunwilling to forget her, and cherished a hope that she had, if notforgotten, at least dismissed from her mind all that had taken placebetween them. Now and then in the night he would wake to a few tenderthoughts of her, but before the morning they would vanish, and during theday he would drown any chance reminiscence of her in a careful polishingand repolishing of his sentences, aping the style of Chalmers or of RobertHall, and occasionally inserting some fine-sounding quotation; for apparentrichness of composition was his principal aim, not truth of meaning, orlucidity of utterance. 

I can hardly be presumptuous in adding that, although growing in a certainpopularity with men, he was not thus growing in favour with God. And as hecontinued to hear nothing about Isy, the hope at length, bringing with it akeen shoot of pleasure, awoke in him that he was never to hear of her more. For the praise of men, and the love of that praise, having now restored himto his own good graces, he regarded himself with more interest andapprobation than ever; and his continued omission of inquiry after Isy, heedless of the predicament in which he might have placed her, was a farworse sin against her, because deliberate, than his primary wrong to her, and it now recoiled upon him in increased hardness of heart andself-satisfaction. 

Thus in love with himself, and thereby shut out from the salvation of loveto another, he was specially in danger of falling in love with theadmiration of any woman; and thence now occurred a little episode in hishistory not insignificant in its results. 

He had not been more than a month or two in his parish when he wasattracted by a certain young woman in his congregation of some inbornrefinement and distinction of position, to whom he speedily became anxiousto recommend himself: he must have her approval, and, if possible, heradmiration! Therefore in his preaching, if the word used for the lofty, simple utterance of divine messengers, may without offence be misappliedto his paltry memorizations, his main thought was always whether the saidlady was justly appreciating the eloquence and wisdom with which he meantto impress her--while in fact he remained incapable of understanding howdeep her natural insight penetrated both him and his pretensions. Herprobing attention, however, he so entirely misunderstood that it gave himno small encouragement; and thus becoming only the more eager after hergood opinion, he came at length to imagine himself heartily in love withher--a thing impossible to him with any woman--and at last, emboldened bythe fancied importance of his position, and his own fancied distinction init, he ventured an offer of his feeble hand and feebler heart;--but only tohave them, to his surprise, definitely and absolutely refused. He turnedfrom the lady's door a good deal disappointed, but severely mortified;and, judging it impossible for any woman to keep silence concerning such arefusal, and unable to endure the thought of the gossip to ensue, he beganat once to look about him for a refuge, and frankly told his patron thewhole story. It happened to suit his grace's plans, and he came speedily tohis assistance with the offer of his native parish--whence the soutar'sargumentative antagonist had just been removed to a place, probably not avery distinguished one, in the kingdom of heaven; and it seemed to all buta natural piety when James Blatherwick exchanged his parish for that wherehe was born, and where his father and mother continued to occupy the oldfarm. 

CHAPTER IV

The soutar was still meditating on things spiritual, still reading thegospel of St. John, still making and mending shoes, and still watching thedevelopment of his daughter, who had begun to unfold what not a few of theneighbours, with most of whom she was in favour, counted beauty. The farmlabourers in the vicinity were nearly all more or less her admirers, andmany a pair of shoes was carried to her father for the sake of a possiblesmile from Maggie; but because of a certain awe that seemed to pervade herpresence, no one had as yet dared a word to her beyond that of greeting orfarewell: each that looked upon her became at once aware of a certaininferiority. Her beauty seemed to suggest behind it a beauty it was unableto reveal. 

She was rather short in stature, but altogether well proportioned, with aface wonderfully calm and clear, and quiet but keen dark eyes. Hercomplexion owed its white-rose tinge to a strong, gentle life, and its fewfreckles to the pale sun of Scotland, for she courted every breezebonnetless on the hills, when she accompanied her father in his walks, orcarried home the work he had finished. He rejoiced especially that sheshould delight in feeling the wind about her, for he held it to indicatesympathy with that spirit whose symbol it was, and which he loved to thinkof as folding her about, closer and more lovingly than his own cherishingsoul. 

Of her own impulse, and almost from the moment of her mother's death, shehad given herself to his service, first in doing all the little duties ofthe house, and then, as her strength and faculty grew, in helping him moreand more in his trade. As soon as she had cleared away the few thingsnecessary for a breakfast of porridge and milk, Maggie would hasten to joinher father where he stooped over his last, for he was a littleshortsighted. 

When he lifted his head you might see that, notwithstanding the ruggednessof his face, he was a good looking man, with strong, well-proportionedfeatures, in which, even on Sundays, when he scrubbed his faceunmercifully, there would still remain lines suggestive of ingrained rosinand heelball. On week days he was not so careful to remove every sign ofthe labour by which he earned his bread; but when his work was over tillthe morning, and he was free to sit down to a book, he would never eventouch one without first carefully washing his hands and face. In theworkshop, Maggie's place was a leather-seated stool like her father's, ayard or so away from his, to leave room for his elbows in drawing out thelingels (_rosined threads_): there she would at once resume the work shehad left unfinished the night before; for it was a curious trait in thefather, early inherited by the daughter, that he would never rise from afinished job, however near might be the hour for dropping work, withouthaving begun another to go on with in the morning. It was wonderful howmuch cleaner Maggie managed to keep her hands; but then to her fellnaturally the lighter work for women and children. She declared herselfambitious, however, of one day making with her own hands a perfect pair oftop-boots. 

The advantages she gained from this constant intercourse with her fatherwere incalculable. Without the least loss to her freedom of thought, nay, on the contrary, to the far more rapid development of her truest liberty, the soutar seemed to avoid no subject as unsuitable for the girl'sconsideration, but to insist only on its being regarded from the highestattainable point of view. Matters of indifferent import they seldom, ifever, discussed at all; and nothing she knew her father cared about didMaggie ever allude to with indifference. Full of an honest hilarity everready to break out when occasion occurred, she was at the same timeincapable of a light word upon a sacred subject. Such jokes as, more thanelsewhere, one is in danger of hearing among the clergy of every church, very seldom came out in her father's company; and she very early becameaware of the kind of joke he would take or refuse. The light use, especially, of any word of the Lord would sink him in a profound silence. If it were an ordinary man who thus offended, he might rebuke him by askingif he remembered who said those words; once, when it was a man speciallyregarded who gave the offence, I heard him say something to this effect, "The maister doesna forget whaur and whan he spak thae words: I houp ye doforget!" Indeed the most powerful force in the education of Maggie was theevident attitude of her father toward that Son of Man who was even nowbringing the children of God to the knowledge of that Father of whom thewhole family in heaven and earth is named. Mingling with her delights inthe inanimate powers of Nature, in the sun and the wind, in the rain andthe growth, in the running waters and the darkness sown with stars, wassuch a sense of His presence that she felt like him, He might at any momentappear to her father, or, should it so please Him, even to herself. 

Two or three miles away, in the heart of the hills, on the outskirts of thefarm of Stonecross, lived an old cottar and his wife, who paid a fewshillings of rent to Mr. Blatherwick for the acre or two their ancestorshad redeemed from the heather and bog, and gave, with their one son whoremained at home, occasional service on the farm. They were much respectedby the farmer and his wife, as well as the small circle to which they wereknown in the neighbouring village--better known, and more respected stillin that kingdom called of heaven; for they were such as he to whom thepromise was given, that he should yet see the angels of God ascending anddescending on the Son of Man. They had long and heartily loved and honouredthe soutar, whom they had known before the death of his wife, and for hissake and hers, both had always befriended the motherless Maggie. Theycould not greatly pity her, seeing she had such a father, yet old Eppiehad her occasional moments of anxiety as to how the bairn would grow upwithout a mother's care. No sooner, however, did the little one begin toshow character, than Eppie's doubt began to abate; and long before the timeto which my narrative has now come, the child and the child like old womanwere fast friends. Maggie was often invited to spend a day at Bogsheuch--oftener indeed than she felt at liberty to leave her father and theircommon work, though not oftener than she would have liked to go. 

One morning, early in summer, when first the hillsides had begun to lookattractive, a small agricultural cart, such as is now but seldom seen, withlittle paint except on its two red wheels, and drawn by a thin, long-hairedlittle horse, stopped at the door of the soutar's house, clay-floored andstraw-thatched, in a back-lane of the village. It was a cart the cottarused in the cultivation of his little holding, and his son who drove it, now nearly middle-aged, was likely to succeed to the hut and acres ofBogsheuch. Man and equipage, both well known to the soutar, had come withan invitation, more pressing than usual, that Maggie would pay them avisit of a few days. 

Father and daughter, consulting together in the presence of Andrew Cormack, arrived at the conclusion that, work being rather slacker than usual, andnobody in need of any promised job which the soutar could not finish byhimself in good time, Maggie was quite at liberty to go. She sprang upjoyfully--not without a little pang at the thought of leaving her fatheralone, although she knew him quite equal to anything that could be requiredin the house before her return--and set about preparing their dinner, whileAndrew went to execute a few commissions that the mistress at Stonecrossand his mother at Bogsheuch had given him. By the time he returned, Maggiewas in her Sunday gown, with her week-day wrapper and winsey petticoat in abundle--for she reckoned on being of some use to Eppie during her visitWhen they had eaten their humble dinner, Andrew brought the cart to thedoor, and Maggie scrambled into it. 

"Tak a piece wi' ye, " said her father, following her to the cart: "ye hadnamuckle to yer denner, and ye may be hungry again or ye hae the lang roadahint ye!"

He put several pieces of oatcake in her hand, which she received with aloving smile; and they set out at a walking pace, which Andrew made noattempt to quicken. 

It was far from a comfortable carriage, neither was her wisp of straw inthe bottom of it altogether comfortable to sit upon; but the change fromher stool and the close attention her work required, to the open air andthe free rush of the thoughts that came crowding to her out of thewilderness, put her at once in a blissful mood. Even the few dull remarksthat the slow-thinking Andrew made at intervals from his perch on thefront of the cart, seemed to come to her from the realm of Faerie, themysterious world that lay in the folds of the huddled hills. EverythingMaggie saw or heard that afternoon seemed to wear the glamour of God'simagination, which is at once the birth and the very truth of everything. Selfishness alone can rub away that divine gilding, without which golditself is poor indeed. 

Suddenly the little horse stood still. Andrew, waking up from a snooze, jumped to the ground, and began, still half asleep, to search into thecause of the arrest; for Jess, although she could not make haste, never ofher own accord stood still while able to keep on walking. Maggie, on herpart, had for some time noted that they were making very slow progress. 

"She's deid cripple!" said Andrew at length, straightening his long backfrom an examination of Jess's fore feet, and coming to Maggie's side of thecart with a serious face. "I dinna believe the crater's fit to gang ae stepfurder! Yet I canna see what's happent her. "

Maggie was on the road before he had done speaking. Andrew tried once tolead Jess, but immediately desisted. "It would be fell cruelty!" he said. "We maun jist lowse her, and tak her gien we can to the How o' the Mains. They'll gie her a nicht's quarters there, puir thing! And we'll see gienthey can tak you in as weel, Maggie. The maister, I mak nae doobt, 'illlen' me a horse to come for ye i' the morning. "

"I winna hear o' 't!" answered Maggie. "I can tramp the lave o' the ro'd asweel's you, Andrew!"

"But I hae a' thae things to cairry, and that'll no lea' me a ban' to helpye ower the burn!" objected Andrew. 

"What o' that?" she returned. "I was sae fell tired o' sittin that my legsare jist like to rin awa wi' me. Lat me jist dook mysel i' the bonny win'!"she added, turning herself round and round. "--Isna it jist like awfu' thinwatter, An'rew?--Here, gie me a haud o' that loaf. I s' cairry that, and myain bit bundle as weel; syne, I fancy, ye can manage the lave yersel!"

Andrew never had much to say, and this time he had nothing. But herreadiness relieved him of some anxiety; for his mother would be veryuncomfortable if he went home without her!

Maggie's spirits rose to lark-pitch as the darkness came on and deepened;and the wind became to her a live gloom, in which, with no eye-bound to thespace enclosing her, she could go on imagining after the freedom of her ownwild will. As the world and everything in it gradually disappeared, it greweasy to imagine Jesus making the darkness light about him, and steppingfrom it plain before her sight. That could be no trouble to him, sheargued, as, being everywhere, he must be there. He could appear in anyform, who had created every shape on the face of the whole world! If shewere but fit to see him, then surely he would come to her! For thus oftenhad her father spoken to her, talking of the varied appearances of the Lordafter his resurrection, and his promise that he would be with his disciplesalways to the end of the world. Even after he had gone back to his father, had he not appeared to the apostle Paul? and might it not be that he hadshown himself to many another through the long ages? In any case he waseverywhere, and always about them, although now, perhaps from lack of faithin the earth, he had not been seen for a long time. And she remembered herfather once saying that nobody could even _think_ a thing if there was nopossible truth in it. The Lord went away that they might believe in himwhen out of the sight of him, and so be in him, and he in them!

"I dinna think, " said Maggie aloud to herself, as she trudged along besidethe delightfully silent Andrew, "that my father would be the leastastonished--only filled wi' an awfu' glaidness--if at ony moment, walkin athis side, the Lord was to call him by his name, and appear til him. Hewould but think he had just steppit oot upon him frae some secret door, andwould say, --'I thoucht, Lord, I would see you some day! I was aye greedyefter a sicht o' ye, Lord, and here ye are!'"

CHAPTER V

The same moment to her ears came the cry of an infant. Her first thoughtwas, "Can that be Himsel, come ance again as he cam ance afore?"

She stopped in the dusky starlight, and listened with her very soul. 

"Andrew!" she cried, for she heard the sound of his steps as he plodded onin front of her, and could vaguely see him, "Andrew, what was yon?"

"I h'ard naething, " answered Andrew, stopping at her cry and listening. 

There came a second cry, a feeble, sad wail, and both of them heard it. 

Maggie darted off in the direction whence it seemed to come; nor had shefar to run, for it was not one to reach any distance. 

They were at the moment climbing a dreary, desolate ridge, where the roadwas a mere stony hollow, in winter a path for the rain rather than the feetof men. On each side of it lay a wild moor, covered with heather and lowberry-bearing shrubs. Under a big bush Maggie saw something glimmer, and, flying to it, found a child. It might be a year old, but was so small andpoorly nourished that its age was hard to guess. "With the instinct of amother, she caught it up, and clasping it close to her panting bosom, wasdelighted to find it cease wailing the moment it felt her arm. Andrew, whohad dropped the things he carried, and started at once after her, met herhalf-way, so absorbed in her treasure trove, and so blind to aught else, that he had to catch them both in his arms to break the imminent shock;but she slipped from them, and, to his amazement, went on down the hill, back the way they had come: clearly she thought of nothing but carrying theinfant home to her father; and here even the slow perception of hercompanion understood her. 

"Maggie, Maggie, " he cried, "ye'll baith be deid afore ye win hame wi' 't!Come on to my mither. There never was wuman like her for bairns! She'll kena hantle better nor ony father what to dee wi' 't!"

Maggie at once recovered her senses, and knew he was right--but not beforeshe had received an instantaneous insight that never after left her: nowshe understood the heart of the Son of Man, come to find and carry back thestray children to their Father and His. When afterward she told her fatherwhat she had then felt, he answered her with just the four words and nomore--

"Lassie, ye hae 't!"

Happily the moon was now up, so that Andrew was soon able to find thethings they had both dropped in their haste, and Maggie had soon wrappedthe baby in the winsey petticoat she had been carrying. Andrew took up hisloaf and his other packages, and they set out again for Bogsheuch, Maggie'sheart all but overwhelmed with its exultation. Had the precious thing beentwice the weight, so exuberant was her feeling of wealth in it that shecould have carried it twice the distance with ease, although the road wasso rough that she went in constant terror of stumbling. Andrew gave nowand then a queer chuckle at the ludicrousness of their home-coming, andevery second minute had to stop and pick up one or other of his manyparcels; but Maggie strode on in front, full of possession, and with thefeeling of having now at last entered upon her heavenly inheritance; sothat she was quite startled when suddenly they came in sight of the turfcottage, and the little window in which a small cresset-lamp was burning. Before they reached it the door opened, and Eppie appeared with an overflowof question and anxious welcome. 

"What on earth--" she began. 

"Naething but a bonny wee bairnie, whause mither has tint it!" at onceinterrupted and answered Maggie, flying up to her, and laying the child inher arms. 

Mrs. Cormack stood and stared, now at Maggie, and now at the bundle thatlay in her own arms. Tenderly searching in the petticoat, she found at lastthe little one's face, and uncovered the sleeping child. 

"Eh the puir mither!" she said, and hurriedly covered again the tinycountenance. 

"It's mine!" cried Maggie. "I faund it honest!"

"Its mither may ha' lost it honest, Maggie!" said Eppie. 

"Weel, its mither can come for't gien she want it! It's mine till she dis, ony gait!" rejoined the girl. 

"Nae doobt o' that!" replied the old woman, scarcely questioning that theinfant had been left to perish by some worthless tramp. "Ye'll maybe hae'tlanger nor ye'll care to keep it!"

"That's no vera likly, " answered Maggie with a smile, as she stood in thedoorway, in the wakeful night of the northern summer: "it's ane o' theLord's ain lammies 'at he cam to the hills to seek. He's fund this ane!"

"Weel, weel, my bonnie doo, it sanna be for me to contradick ye!--But wae'supo' me for a menseless auld wife! come in; come in: the mair welcome 'atye're lang expeckit!--But bless me, An'rew, what hae ye dune wi' the cairtand the beastie?"

In a few words, for brevity was easy to him, Andrew told the story of theirdisaster. 

"It maun hae been the Lord's mercy! The puir beastie bude to suffer for thesake o' the bairnie!"

She got them their supper, which was keeping hot by the fire; and then sentMaggie to her bed in the ben-end, where she laid the baby beside her, afterwashing him and wrapping him in a soft well-worn shift of her own. ButMaggie scarcely slept for listening lest the baby's breath should stop; andEppie sat in the kitchen with Andrew until the light, slowly travellinground the north, deepened in the east, and at last climbed the sky, leadingup the sun himself; when Andrew rose, and set his face toward Stonecross, in full but not very anxious expectation of a stormy reception from hismistress before he should have time to explain. When he reached home, however, he found the house not yet astir; and had time to feed and groomhis horses before any one was about, so that, to his relief, no renderingof reasons was necessary. 

All the next day Maggie was ill at ease, in much dread of the appearance ofa mother. The baby seemed nothing the worse for his exposure, and althoughthin and pale, appeared a healthy child, taking heartily the food offeredhim. He was decently though poorly clad, and very clean. The Cormacksmaking inquiry at every farmhouse and cottage within range of the moor, the tale of his finding was speedily known throughout the neighbourhood;but to the satisfaction of Maggie at least, who fretted to carry home hertreasure, without any result; so that by the time the period of her visitarrived, she was feeling tolerably secure in her possession, and returnedwith it in triumph to her father. 

The long-haired horse not yet proving equal to the journey, she had to walkhome; but Eppie herself accompanied her, bent on taking her share in theburden of the child, which Maggie was with difficulty persuaded to yield. Eppie indeed carried him up to the soutar's door, but Maggie insisted onherself laying him in her father's arms. The soutar rose from his stool, received him like Simeon taking the infant Jesus from the arms of hismother, and held him high like a heave-offering to him that had sent himforth from the hidden Holiest of Holies. One moment in silence he held him, then restoring him to his daughter, sat down again, and took up his lastand shoe. Then suddenly becoming aware of a breach in his manners, he roseagain at once, saying--

"I crave yer pardon, Mistress Cormack: I was clean forgettin ony breedin Iever had!--Maggie, tak oor freen ben the hoose, and gar her rest her a bit, while ye get something for her efter her lang walk. I'll be ben mysel' in ameenute or twa to hae a crack wi' her. I hae but a feow stitches mair toput intil this same sole! The three o' 's maun tak some sarious coonselthegither anent the upbringin o' this God-sent bairn! I doobtna but he'scome wi' a blessin to this hoose! Eh, but it was a mercifu fittin o' thingsthat the puir bairn and Maggie sud that nicht come thegither! Verily, Heshall give his angels chairge over thee! They maun hae been aboot the muira' that day, that nane but Maggie sud get a haud o' 'im--aiven as theymaun hae been aboot the field and the flock and the shepherds and theinn-stable a' that gran' nicht!"

The same moment entered a neighbour who, having previously heard andmisinterpreted the story, had now caught sight of their arrival. 

"Eh, soutar, but ye _ir_ a man by Providence sair oppressed!" she cried. "Wha think ye's been i' the faut here?"

The wrath of the soutar sprang up flaming. 

"Gang oot o' my hoose, ye ill-thouchtit wuman!" he shouted. "Gang oot o' 'tthis verra meenit--and comena intil 't again 'cep it be to beg my pardonand that o' this gude wuman and my bonny lass here! The Lord God bless herfrae ill tongues!--Gang oot, I tell ye!"

The outraged father stood towering, whom all the town knew for a man ofgentlest temper and great courtesy. The woman stood one moment dazed anduncertain, then turned and fled. Maggie retired with Mistress Cormack; andwhen the soutar joined them, he said never a word about the discomfitedgossip. Eppie having taken her tea, rose and bade them good-night, norcrossed another threshold in the village. 

CHAPTER VI

As soon as the baby was asleep, Maggie went back to the kitchen where herfather still sat at work. 

"Ye're late the night, father!" she said. 

"I am that, lassie; but ye see I canna luik for muckle help frae you forsome time: ye'll hae eneuch to dee wi' that bairn o' yours; and we hae himto fen for noo as weel's oorsels! No 'at I hae the least concern aboot thebonny white raven, only we maun consider _him_ like the lave!" "It'slittle he'll want for a whilie, father!" answered Maggie. "--But noo, " shewent on, in a tone of seriousness that was almost awe, "lat me hear whatye're thinkin:--what kin' o' a mither could she be that left her bairntheroot i' the wide, eerie nicht? and what for could she hae dene 't?"

"She maun hae been some puir lassie that hadna learnt to think first o' Hiswull! She had believt the man whan he promised to merry her, no kennin hewas a leear, and no heedin the v'ice inside her that said _ye maunna_; andsae she loot him dee what he likit wi' her, and mak himsel the father o' abairnie that wasna meant for him. Sic leeberties as he took wi' her, andshe ouchtna to hae permittit, made a mither o' her afore ever she wasmerried. Sic fules hae an awfu' time o' 't; for fowk hardly ever forgiesthem, and aye luiks doon upo' them. Doobtless the rascal ran awa and lefther to fen for hersel; naebody would help her; and she had to beg the breidfor hersel, and the drap milk for the bairnie; sae that at last she losthert and left it, jist as Hagar left hers aneath the buss i' the wildernessafore God shawed her the bonny wall o' watter. "

"I kenna whilk o' them was the warst--father or mither!" cried Maggie. 

"Nae mair do I!" said the soutar; "but I doobt the ane that lee'd to theither, maun hae to be coontit the warst!"

"There canna be mony sic men!" said Maggie. 

"'Deed there's a heap o' them no a hair better!" rejoined her father; "butwae's me for the puir lassie that believes them!"

"She kenned what was richt a' the time, father!"

"That's true, my dauty; but to ken is no aye to un'erstan'; and even toun'erstan' is no aye to see richt intil't! No wuman's safe that hasna thelove o' God, the great Love, in her hert a' the time! What's best in her, whan the vera best's awa, may turn to be her greatest danger. And thehigher ye rise ye come into the waur danger, till ance ye're fairly intilthe ae safe place, the hert o' the Father. There, and there only, ye'resafe!--safe frae earth, frae hell, and frae yer ain hert! A' thetemptations, even sic as ance made the haivenly hosts themsels fa' fraehaiven to hell, canna touch ye there! But whan man or wuman repents andheumbles himsel, there is He to lift them up, and that higher than everthey stede afore!"

"Syne they're no to be despised that fa'!"

"Nane despises them, lassie, but them that haena yet learnt the dangerthey're in o' that same fa' themsels. Mony ane, I'm thinking, is keepitfrae fa'in, jist because she's no far eneuch on to get the guid o' theshame, but would jist sink farther and farther!"

"But Eppie tells me that maist o' them 'at trips gangs on fa'in, and neverwins up again. "

"Ou, ay; that's true as far as we, short-lived and short-sichtit craturs, see o' them! but this warl's but the beginnin; and the glory o' Christ, wha's the vera Love o' the Father, spreads a heap further nor that. It'sno for naething we're tellt hoo the sinner-women cam til him frae a' sides!They needit him sair, and cam. Never ane o' them was ower black to belatten gang close up til him; and some o' sic women un'erstede things hesaid 'at mony a respectable wuman cudna get a glimp o'! There's aye raineneuch, as Maister Shaksper says, i' the sweet haivens to wash the verahan' o' murder as white as snow. The creatin hert is fu' o' sic rain. Loe_him_, lassie, and ye'll never glaur the bonny goon ye broucht white fraehis hert!"

The soutar's face was solemn and white, and tears were running down thefurrows of his cheeks. Maggie too was weeping. At length she said--

Supposin the mither o' my bairnie a wuman like that, can ye think it fairthat _her_ disgrace should stick til _him?_"

"It sticks til him only in sic minds as never saw the lovely greatness o'God. "

"But sic bairns come na intil the warl as God wad hae them come!"

"But your bairnie _is_ come, and that he couldna withoot the creatin wullo' the Father! Doobtless sic bairnies hae to suffer frae the proodjeedgment o' their fellow-men and women, but they may get muckle guid andlittle ill frae that--a guid naebody can reive them o'. It's no a mereveesitin o' the sins o' the fathers upo' the bairns, but a provision tohaud the bairns aff o' the like, and to shame the fathers o' them. Eh, butsic maun be sair affrontit wi' themsels, that disgrace at ance the wifethat should hae been and the bairn that shouldna! Eh, the puir bairnie thathas sic a father! But he has anither as weel--a richt gran' father to rintil!--The ae thing, " the soutar went on, "that you and me, Maggie, has todo, is never to lat the bairn ken the miss o' father or mother, and saelead him to the ae Father, the only real and true ane. --There he's wailin, the bonny wee man!"

Maggie ran to quiet her little one, but soon returned, and sitting downagain beside her father, asked him for a piece of work. 

All this time, through his own cowardly indifference, the would-be-grandpreacher, James Blatherwick, knew nothing of the fact that, somewhere inthe world, without father or mother, lived a silent witness against him. 

CHAPTER VII

Isy had contrived to postpone her return to her aunt until James was gone;for she dreaded being in the house with him lest anything should lead tothe discovery of the relation between them. Soon after his departure, however, she had to encounter the appalling fact that the dread moment wason its way when she would no longer be able to conceal the change in hercondition. Her first and last thought was then, how to protect the goodname of her lover, and avoid involving him in the approaching ruin of herreputation. With this in view she vowed to God and to her own soulabsolute silence with regard to the past: James's name even should neverpass her lips! Nor did she find the vow hard to keep, even when her aunttook measures to draw her secret from her; but the dread lest in her painsshe should cry out for the comfort which James alone could give her, almost drove her to poison, from which only the thought of his coming childrestrained her. Enabled at length only by the pure inexorability of herhour, she passed through her sorrow and found herself still alive, with herlips locked tight on her secret. The poor girl who was weak enough toimperil her good name for love of a worthless man, was by that love madestrong to shield him from the consequences of her weakness. Whether in thisshe did well for the world, for the truth, or for her own soul, she neverwasted a thought. In vain did her aunt ply her with questions; she feltthat to answer one of them would be to wrong him, and lose her lastrighteous hold upon the man who had at least once loved her a little. Without a gleam, without even a shadow of hope for herself, she clung, through shame and blame, to his scathlessness as the only joy left her. Hehad most likely, she thought, all but forgotten her very existence, for hehad never written to her, or made any effort to discover what had become ofher. She clung to the conviction that he could never have heard of whathad befallen her. 

By and by she grew able to reflect that to remain where she was would bethe ruin of her aunt; for who would lodge in the same house with _her_? Shemust go at once! and her longing to go, with the impossibility of eventhinking where she could go, brought her to the very verge of despair, andit was only the thought of her child that still gave her strength enoughto live on. And to add immeasurably to her misery, she was now suddenlypossessed by the idea, which for a long time remained immovably fixed, that, agonizing as had been her effort after silence, she had failed inher resolve, and broken the promise she imagined she had given to James;that she had been false to him, brought him to shame, and for ever ruinedhis prospects; that she had betrayed him into the power of her aunt, andthrough her to the authorities of the church! That was why she had neverheard a word from him, she thought, and she was never to see him any more!The conviction, the seeming consciousness of all this, so grew upon herthat, one morning, when her infant was not yet a month old, she crept fromthe house, and wandered out into the world, with just one shilling in apurse forgotten in the pocket of her dress. After that, for a time, hermemory lost hold of her consciousness, and what befel her remained ablank, refusing to be recalled. 

When she began to come to herself she had no knowledge of where she hadbeen, or for how long her mind had been astray; all was irretrievableconfusion, crossed with cloud-like trails of blotted dreams, and vaguesurvivals of gratitude for bread and pieces of money. Everything she becameaware of surprised her, except the child in her arms. Her story had beenplain to every one she met, and she had received thousands of kindnesseswhich her memory could not hold. At length, intentionally or not, she foundherself in a neighbourhood to which she had heard James Blatherwick refer. 

Here again a dead blank stopped her backward gaze--till suddenly once moreshe grew aware, and knew that she was aware, of being alone on a wide moorin a dim night, with her hungry child, to whom she had given the last dropof nourishment he could draw from her, wailing in her arms. Then fell uponher a hideous despair, and unable to carry him a step farther, she droppedhim from her helpless hands into a bush, and there left him, to find, asshe thought, some milk for him. She could sometimes even remember that shewent staggering about, looking under the great stones, and into the clumpsof heather, in the hope of finding something for him to drink. At last, Ipresume, she sank on the ground, and lay for a time insensible; anyhow, when she came to herself, she searched in vain for the child, or even theplace where she had left him. 

The same evening it was that Maggie came along with Andrew, and found thebaby as I have already told. All that night, and a great part of the nextday, Isy went searching about in vain, doubtless with intervals of reposecompelled by utter exhaustion. Imagining at length that she had discoveredthe very spot where she left him, and not finding him, she came to theconclusion that some wild beast had come upon the helpless thing andcarried him off. Then a gleam of water coming to her eye, she rushed to thepeat-hag whence it was reflected, and would there have drowned herself. But she was intercepted and turned aside by a man who threw down hisflauchter-spade, and ran between her and the frightful hole. He thoughtshe was out of her mind, and tried to console her with the assurance thatno child left on that moor could be in other than luck's way. He gave her afew half-pence, and directed her to the next town, with a threat ofhanging if she made a second attempt of the sort. A long time of wanderingfollowed, with ceaseless inquiry, and alternating disappointment and freshexpectation; but every day something occurred that served just to keep thelife in her, and at last she reached the county-town, where she was takento a place of shelter. 

CHAPTER VIII

James Blatherwick was proving himself not unacceptable to his nativeparish, where he was thought a very rising man, inasmuch as his fluency wasfar ahead of his perspicuity. He soon came to note the soutar as a man farin advance of the rest of his parishioners; but he saw, at the same time, that he was regarded by most as a wild fanatic if not as a dangerousheretic; and himself imagined that he saw in him certain indications of amild lunacy. 

In Tiltowie he pursued the same course as elsewhere: anxious to let nothingcome between him and the success of his eloquence, he avoided anyappearance of differing in doctrine from his congregation; and until heshould be more firmly established, would show himself as much as possibleof the same mind with them, using the doctrinal phrases he had beenaccustomed to in his youth, or others so like that they would be taken toindicate unchanged opinions, while for his part he practised a mentalreservation in regard to them. 

He had noted with some degree of pleasure in the soutar, that he usedalmost none of the set phrases of the good people of the village, whodevoutly followed the traditions of the elders; but he knew little as towhat the soutar did not believe, and still less of what he did believe withall his heart and soul; for John MacLear could not even utter the name ofGod without therein making a confession of faith immeasurably beyondanything inhabiting the consciousness of the parson; and on his part soonbegan to note in James a total absence of enthusiasm in regard to suchthings of which his very calling implied at least an absolute acceptance:he would allude to any or all of them as merest matters of course! Neverdid his face light up when he spoke of the Son of God, of his death, or ofhis resurrection; never did he make mention of the kingdom of heaven as ifit were anything more venerable than the kingdom of Great Britain andIreland. 

But the soul of the soutar would venture far into the twilight, searchingafter the things of God, opening wider its eyes, as the darkness widenedaround them. On one occasion the parson took upon him to remonstrate withwhat seemed to him the audacity of his parishioner:

"Don't you think you are just going a little too far there, Mr. MacLear?"he said. 

"Ye mean ower far intil the dark, Mr. Blatherwick?"

"Yes, that is what I mean. You speculate too boldly. "

"But dinna ye think, sir, that that direction it's plain the dark grows awee thinner, though I grant ye there's nothing yet to ca' licht? Licht wemay aye ken by its ain fair shinin, and by noucht else!"

"But the human soul is just as apt to deceive itself as the human eye! Itis always ready to take a flash inside itself for something objective!"said Blatherwick. 

"Nae doobt! nae doobt! but whan the true licht comes, ye aye ken thediffer! A man _may_ tak the dark for licht, but he canna take the licht fordarkness!"

"And there must always be something for the light to shine upon, else theman sees nothing!" said the parson. 

"There's thoucht, and possible insicht intil the man!" said the soutar tohimself. --"Maybe, like the Ephesians, ye haena yet fund oot gien there beony Holy Ghost, sir?" he said to him aloud. 

"No man dares deny that!" answered the minister. 

"Still a man mayna _ken't_, though he daursna deny't! Nane but them 'atfollows whaur he leads, can ken that he verily is. "

"We must beware of private interpretation!" suggested James. 

"Gien a man hearsna a word spoken til his ain sel', he has na the word tolippen til! The Scriptur is to him but a sealed buik; he walks i' the dark. The licht is neither pairtit nor gethered. Gien a man has licht, he hasnane the less that there's twa or three o' them thegither present. --Gienthere be twa or three prayin thegither, ilk ane o' the three has jist whathe's able to receive, and he kens 't in himsel as licht; and the fourth mayhae nane. Gien it comena to ilk ane o' them, it comesna to a'. Ilk ane maunhae the revelation intil his ain sel', as gien there wasna ane mair. Andgien it be sae, hoo are we to win at ony trouth no yet revealed, 'cep wegang oot intil the dark to meet it? Ye maun caw canny, I admit, i' themirk; but ye maun caw gien ye wad win at onything!" "But suppose you knowenough to keep going, and do not care to venture into the dark?"

"Gien a man hauds on practeesin what he kens, the hunger 'ill wauk in himefter something mair. I'm thinkin the angels had lang to desire afore theycould luik intil certain things they sair wantit; but ye may be sure theywarna left withoot as muckle licht as would lead honest fowk safe on!"

"But suppose they couldn't tell whether what they seemed to see was truelight or not?"

"Syne they would hae to fa' back upo the wull o' the great Licht: we kenweel he wants us a' to see as he himsel sees! Gien we seek that Licht, we'll get it; gien we carena for't, we're jist naething and naegait, andare in sore need o' some sharp discipleen. "

"I'm afraid I can't follow you quite. The fact is, I have been so longoccupied with the Bible history, and the new discoveries that beartestimony to it, that I have had but little time for metaphysics. "

"And what's the guid o' history, or sic metapheesics as is the vera sowl o'history, but to help ye to see Christ? and what's the guid o' seein Christbut sae to see God wi' hert and un'erstan'in baith as to ken that yer seeinhim? Ye min' hoo the Lord said nane could ken the Father but the man towhom the Son revealt him? Sir, it's fell time ye had a glimp o' that! Yeken naething till ye ken God--the only ane a man can truly and railly ken!"

"Well, you're a long way ahead of me, and for the present I'm afraidthere's nothing left but to say good-night to you!"

And therewith the minister departed. 

"Lord, " said the soutar, as he sat guiding his awl through sole and weltand upper of the shoe on his last, "there's surely something at work i' theyoong man! Surely he canna be that far frae waukin up to see and ken thathe sees and kens naething! Lord, pu' doon the dyke o' learnin and self-richteousness that he canna see ower the tap o', and lat him see thee upo'the ither side o' 't. Lord, sen' him the grace o' oppen e'en to see whaurand what he is, that he may cry oot wi' the lave o' 's, puir blin' bodies, to them that winna see. 'Wauk, thoo that sleepest, and come oot o' thygrave, and see the licht o' the Father i' the face o' the Son. '"

But the minister went away intent on classifying the soutar by finding outwith what sect of the middle-age mystics to place him. At the same timesomething strange seemed to hover about the man, refusing to be handled inthat way. Something which he called his own religious sense appeared toknow something of what the soutar must mean, though he could neitherisolate nor define it. 

Faithlessly as he had behaved to Isy, Blatherwick was not consciously, thatis with purpose or intent, a deceitful man. He had, on the contrary, alwayscherished a strong faith in his own honour. But faith in a thing, in anidea, in a notion, is no proof, or even sign that the thing actuallyexists: in the present case it had no root except in the man's thought ofhimself, in his presentation to himself of his own reflected self. The manwho thought so much of his honour was in truth a moral unreality, acowardly fellow, a sneak who, in the hope of escaping consequences, carried himself as beyond reproof. How should such a one ever have thepower of spiritual vision developed in him? How should such a one ever seeGod--ever exist in the same region in which the soutar had long taken uphis abode? Still there was this much reality in him, and he had made thismuch progress that, holding fast by his resolve henceforward no more toslide, he was aware also of a dim suspicion of something he had not seen, but which he might become able to see; and was half resolved to think andread, for the future, with the intent to find out what this strange manseemed to know, or thought he knew. 

Soon finding himself unable, however, try as hard as he might, to be sureof anything, he became weary of the effort, and sank back into the old, self-satisfied, blind sleep. 

CHAPTER IX

Out of this quiescence, however, a pang from the past one morning suddenlywaked him, and almost without consciousness of a volition, he found himselfat the soutar's door. Maggie opened it with the baby in her arms, with whomshe had just been having a game. Her face was in a glow, her hair tossedabout, and her dark eyes flashing with excitement. To Blatherwick, withoutany great natural interest in life, and in the net of a haunting troublewhich caused him no immediate apprehension, the young girl, of so littleaccount in the world, and so far below him as he thought, affected him asbeautiful; and, indeed, she was far more beautiful than he was able toappreciate. It must be remembered too, that it was not long since he hadbeen refused by another; and at such a time a man is readier to fall inlove afresh. Trouble then, lack of interest, and late repulse, had laidJames's heart, such as it was, open to assault from a new quarter whence heforesaw no danger. 

"That's a very fine baby you have!" he said. "Whose is he?"

"Mine, sir, " answered Maggie, with some triumph, for she thought every onemust know the story of her treasure. 

"Oh, indeed; I did not know!" answered the parson, bewildered. 

"At least, " Maggie resumed a little hurriedly, "I have the best right tohim!" and there stopped. 

"She cannot possibly be his mother!" thought the minister, and resolved toquestion his housekeeper about the child. 

"Is your father in the house?" he asked, and without waiting for an answer, went in. "Such a big boy is too heavy for you to carry!" he added, as helaid his hand on the latch of the kitchen door. 

"No ae bit!" rejoined Maggie, with a little contempt at his disparagementof her strength. "And wha's to cairry him but me?"

Huddling the boy to her bosom, she went on talking to him in childishguise, as she lifted the latch for the minister:--

"Wad he hae my pet gang traivellin the warl' upo thae twa bonny wee legs o'his ain, wantin the wings he left ahint him? Na, na! they maun grow a heapstronger first. His ain mammie wad cairry him gien he war twice the size!Noo, we s' gang but the hoose and see daddy. "

She bore him after the minister, and sat down with him on her own stool, beside her father, who looked up, with his hands and knees in skilfulconsort of labour. 

"Weel, minister, hoo are ye the day? Is the yerd ony lichter upo' the tapo' ye?" he said, with a smile that was almost pauky. 

"I do not understand you, Mr. MacLear!" answered James with dignity. 

"Na, ye canna! Gien ye could, ye wouldna be sae comfortable as ye seem!"

"I cannot think, Mr. MacLear, why you should be rude to me!"

"Gien ye saw the hoose on fire aboot a man deid asleep, maybe ye micht bein ower great a hurry to be polite til 'im!" remarked the soutar. 

"Dare you suggest, sir, that I have been drinking?" cried the parson. 

"Not for a single moment, sir; and I beg yer pardon for causin ye so tomistak me: I do not believe, sir, ye war ever ance owertaen wi' drink in a'yer life! I fear I'm jist ower ready to speyk in parables, for it's noa'body that can or wull un'erstan' them! But the last time ye left me upo'this same stule, it was wi' that cry o' the Apostle o' the Gentiles i' mylug--'Wauk up, thoo that sleepest!' For even the deid wauk whan the trumpetblatters i' their lug!"

"It seems to me that there the Apostle makes allusion to the condition ofthe Gentile nations, asleep in their sins! But it may apply, doubtless, tothe conversion of any unbelieving man from the error of his ways. "

"Weel, " said the soutar, turning half round, and looking the minister fullin the face, "are _ye_ convertit, sir? Or are ye but turnin frae side toside i' yer coffin--seekin a sleepin assurance that ye're waukin?"

"You are plain-spoken anyway!" said the minister, rising. 

"Maybe I am at last, sir! And maybe I hae been ower lang in comin to thatsame plainness! Maybe I was ower feart for yer coontin me ill-fashiont--what ye ca' _rude!_"

The parson was half-way to the door, for he was angry, which was notsurprising. But with the latch in his hand he turned, and, lo, there in themiddle of the floor, with the child in her arms, stood the beautifulMaggie, as if in act to follow him: both were staring after him. 

"Dinna anger him, father, " said Maggie; "he disna ken better!"

"Weel ken I, my dautie, that he disna ken better; but I canna help thinkinhe's maybe no that far frae the waukin. God grant I be richt aboot that!Eh, gien he wud but wauk up, what a man he would mak! He kens a heap--onlywhat's that whaur a man has no licht?"

"I certainly do not see things as you would have me believe you see them;and you are hardly capable of persuading me that you do, I fear!" saidBlatherwick, with the angry flush again on his face, which had for a momentbeen dispelled by pallor. 

But here the baby seeming to recognize the unsympathetic tone of theconversation, pulled down his lovely little mouth, and sent from it a dreadand potent cry. Clasping him to her bosom, Maggie ran from the room withhim, jostling James in the doorway as he let her pass. 

"I am afraid I frightened the little man!" he said. 

"'Deed, sir, it may ha' been you, or it may ha' been me 'at frichtit him, "rejoined the soutar. "It's a thing I'm sair to blame in--that, whan I'm inricht earnest, I'm aye ready to speyk as gien I was angert. Sir, I humblybeg yer pardon. "

"As humbly I beg yours, " returned the parson; "I was in the wrong. "

The heart of the old man was drawn afresh to the youth. He laid aside hisshoe, and turning on his stool, took James's hand in both of his, and saidsolemnly and lovingly--

"This moment I wad wullin'ly die, sir, that the licht o' that uprisin o'which we spak micht brak throuw upon ye!"

"I believe you, sir, " answered James; "but, " he went on, with an attempt athumour, "it wouldn't be so much for you to do after all, seeing you wouldstraightway find yourself in a much better place!"

"Maybe whaur the penitent thief sat, some auchteen hunner year ago, waitinto be called up higher!" rejoined the soutar with a watery smile. 

The parson opened the door, and went home--where his knees at once foundtheir way to the carpet. 

From that night Blatherwick began to go often to the soutar's, and soonwent almost every other day, for at least a few minutes; and on suchoccasions had generally a short interview with Maggie and the baby, inboth of whom, having heard from the soutar the story of the child, he tooka growing interest. 

"You seem to love him as if he were your own, Maggie!" he said one morningto the girl. 

"And isna he my ain? Didna God himsel gie me the bairn intil my vera airms--or a' but?" she rejoined. 

"Suppose he were to die!" suggested the minister. "Such children often do!"

"I needna think aboot that, " she answered. "I would just hae to say, asmony ane has had to say afore me: 'The Lord gave, '--ye ken the rest, sir!"

But day by day Maggie grew more beautiful in the minister's eyes, until atlast he was not only ready to say that he loved her, but for her sake todisregard worldly and ambitious considerations. 

CHAPTER X

On the morning of a certain Saturday, therefore, which day of the week healways made a holiday, he resolved to let her know without further delaythat he loved her; and the rather that on the next day he was engaged topreach for a brother clergyman at Deemouth, and felt that, his fate withMaggie unknown, his mind would not be cool enough for him to do well in thepulpit. But neither disappointment nor a fresh love had yet served to sethim free from his old vanity or arrogance: he regarded his approachingdeclaration as about to confer great honour as well as favour upon thedamsel of low estate, about to be invited to share in his growingdistinction. In his late disappointment he had asked a lady to descend alittle from her social pedestal, in the belief that he offered her agreater than proportionate counter-elevation; and now in his suit to Maggiehe was almost unable to conceive a possibility of failure. When she wouldhave shown him into the kitchen, he took her by the arm, and leading her tothe _ben-end_, at once began his concocted speech. Scarcely had shegathered his meaning, however, when he was checked by her startled look. 

"And what wad ye hae me dee wi' my bairn?" she asked instantly, withoutsign of perplexity, smiling on the little one as at some absurdity in herarms rather than suggested to her mind. 

But the minister was sufficiently in love to disregard the unexpectedindication. His pride was indeed a little hurt, but he resisted any show ofoffence, reflecting that her anxiety was not altogether an unnatural one. 

"Oh, we shall easily find some experienced mother, " he answered, "who willunderstand better than you even how to take care of him!"

"Na, na!" she rejoined. "I hae baith a father and a wean to luik efter; andthat's aboot as muckle as I'll ever be up til!"

So saying, she rose and carried the little one up to the room her fathernow occupied, nor cast a single glance in the direction of her would-belover. 

Now at last he was astonished. Could it mean that she had not understoodhim? It could not be that she did not appreciate his offer! Her devotion tothe child was indeed absurdly engrossing, but that would soon come right!He could have no fear of such a rivalry, however unpleasant at the moment!That little vagrant to come between him and the girl he would make hiswife!

He glanced round him: the room looked very empty! He heard her oft-interrupted step through the thin floor: she was lavishing caresses on thesenseless little animal! He caught up his hat, and with a flushed face wentstraight to the soutar where he sat at work. 

"I have come to ask you, Mr. MacLear, if you will give me your daughter tobe my wife!" he said. 

"Ow, sae that's it!" returned the soutar, without raising his eyes. 

"You have no objection, I hope?" continued the minister, finding himsilent. 

"What says she hersel? Ye comena to me first, I reckon!"

"She said, or implied at least, that she could not leave the child. But shecannot mean that!"

"And what for no?--There's nae need for me to objeck!"

"But I shall soon persuade her to withdraw that objection!"

"Then I should _hae_ objections--mair nor ane--to put to the fore!"

"You surprise me! Is not a woman to leave father and mother and cleave toher husband?"

"Ow ay--sae be the woman is his wife! Than lat nane sun'er them!--Butthere's anither sayin, sir, that I doobt may hae something to dee wi'Maggie's answer!"

"And what, pray, may that be?"

"That man or woman must leave father and mother, wife and child, for thesake o' the Son o' Man. "

"You surely are not papist enough to think that means a minister is not tomarry?"

"Not at all, sir; but I doobt that's what it'll come til atween you andMaggie!"

"You mean that she will not marry?"

"I mean that she winna merry _you_, sir. "

"But just think how much more she could do for Christ as the minister'swife!"

"I'm 'maist convinced she wad coont merryin you as tantamount to refusin tolea' a' for the Son o' Man. "

"Why should she think that?"

"Because, sae far as I see, she canna think that _ye_ hae left a' for_him_. "

"Ah, that is what you have been teaching her! She does not say that ofherself! You have not left her free to choose!"

"The queston never came up atween's. She's perfecly free to tak her aingait--and she kens she is!--Ye dinna seem to think it possible she sud tak_his_ wull raither nor yours!--that the love o' Christ should constrain herayont the love offert her by Jeames Bletherwick!--We _hae_ conversed abootye, sir, but niver differt!"

"But allowing us--you and me--to be of different opinions on some points, must that be a reason why she and I should not love one another?"

"No reason whatever, sir--if ye can and do: _that_ point would be alreadysettlet. But ye winna get Maggie to merry ye sae long as she disna believeye loe her Lord as well as she loes him hersel. It's no a common love thatMaggie beirs to her Lord; and gien ye loed her wi' a luve worthy o' her, yewould see that!"

"Then you will promise me not to interfere?"

"I'll promise ye naething, sir, excep to do my duty by her--sae far as Iunderstan' what that duty is. Gien I thoucht--which the God o' my lifeforbid!--that Maggie didna lo'e him as weel at least as I lo'e him, I wouldgang upo' my auld knees til her, to entreat her to loe him wi' a' her heartand sowl and stren'th and min';--and whan I had done that, she micht merrywha she wad--hangman or minister: no a word would I say! For trouble shemaun hae, and trouble she wull get--I thank my God, who giveth to all menliberally and upbraideth not!"

"Then I am free to do my best to win her?"

"Ye are, sir; and mair--afore the morn's mornin, I winna pass a word wi'her upo the subjeck. "

"Thank you, sir, " returned the minister, and took his leave. 

"A fine lad! a fine lad!" said the soutar aloud to himself, as he resumedthe work for a moment interrupted, "--but no clear--no crystal-clear--noclear like the Son o' Man!"

He looked up, and saw his daughter in the doorway. 

"No a word, lassie!" he cried. "I'm no for ye this meenute. --No a word tome aboot onything or onybody the day, but what's absolute necessar!"

"As ye wull! father, " rejoined Maggie. --"I'm gaein oot to seek auld Eppy;she was intil the baker's shop a meenute ago!--The bairnie's asleep. "

"Vera weel! Gien I hear him, I s' atten' til 'im, " answered the soutar. 

"Thank ye, father, " returned Maggie, and left the house. 

But the minister, having to start that same afternoon for Deemouth, andfeeling it impossible, things remaining as they were, to preach at hisease, had been watching the soutar's door: he saw it open and Maggieappear. For a moment he flattered himself she was coming to look for him, in order to tell him how sorry she was for her late behaviour to him. Buther start when first she became aware of his presence, did not fail, notwithstanding his conceit, to satisfy him that such was not her intent. He made haste to explain his presence. 

"I've been waiting all this time on the chance of seeing you, Margaret!" hesaid. "I am starting within an hour or so for Deemouth, but could not bearto go without telling you that your father has no objection to my saying toyou what I please. He means to have a talk with you to-morrow morning, andas I cannot possibly get back from Deemouth before Monday, I must nowexpress the hope that he will not succeed in persuading you to doubt thereality of my love. I admire your father more than I can tell you, but heseems to hold the affections God has given us of small account comparedwith his judgment of the strength and reality of them. "

"Did he no tell ye I was free to do or say what I liked?" rejoined Maggierather sharply. 

"Yes; he did say something to that effect. "

"Then, for mysel, and i' the name o' my father, I tell ye, MaisterBletherwick, I dinna care to see ye again. "

"Do you mean what you say, Margaret?" rejoined the minister, in a voicethat betrayed not a little genuine emotion. 

"I do mean it, " she answered. 

"Not if I tell you that I am both ready and willing to take the child andbring him up as my own?"

"He wouldna _be_ yer ain!"

"Quite as much as yours!"

"Hardly, " she returned, with a curious little laugh. "But, as I daur say myfather tellt ye, I canna believe ye lo'e God wi' a' yer hert. "

"Dare you say that for yourself, Margaret?"

"No; but I do want to love God wi' my whole hert. Mr. Bletherwick, are ye arael Christian? Or are ye sure ye're no a hypocreet? I wad like to ken. ButI dinna believe ye ken yersel!"

"Well, perhaps I do not. But I see there is no occasion to say more!"

"Na, nane, " answered Maggie. 

He lifted his hat, and turned away to the coach-office. 

CHAPTER XI

It would be difficult to represent the condition of mind in whichBlatherwick sat on the box-seat of the Defiance coach that evening, behindfour gray thorough-breds, carrying him at the rate of ten miles an hourtowards Deemouth. Hurt pride, indignation, and a certain mild revenge incontemplating Maggie's disappointment when at length she should becomeaware of the distinction he had gained and she had lost, were its maincomponents. He never noted a feature of the rather tame scenery that wenthurrying past him, and yet the time did not seem to go slowly, for he wasastonished when the coach stopped, and he found his journey at an end. 

He got down rather cramped and stiff, and, as it was still early, startedfor a stroll about the streets to stretch his legs, and see what was goingon, glad that he had not to preach in the morning, and would have all theafternoon to go over his sermon once more in that dreary memory of his. Thestreets were brilliant with gas, for Saturday was always a sort of market-night, and at that moment they were crowded with girls going merrily homefrom the paper-mill at the close of the week's labour. To Blatherwick, whohad very little sympathy with gladness of any sort, the sight only calledup by contrast the very different scene on which his eyes would look downthe next evening from the vantage coigne of the pulpit, in a church filledwith an eminently respectable congregation--to which he would be settingforth the results of certain late geographical discoveries and localidentifications, not knowing that already even later discoveries hadrendered all he was about to say more than doubtful. 

But while, sunk in a not very profound reverie, he was in the act ofturning the corner of a narrow wynd, he was all but knocked down by a girlwhom another in the crowd had pushed violently against him. Recoiling fromthe impact, and unable to recover her equilibrium, she fell helplesslyprostrate on the granite pavement, and lay motionless. Annoyed and half-angry, he was on the point of walking on, heedless of the accident, whensomething in the pale face among the coarse and shapeless shoes that hadalready gathered thick around it, arrested him with a strong suggestion ofsome one he had once known. But the same moment the crowd hid her from hisview; and, shocked even to be reminded of Isy in such an assemblage, heturned resolutely away, and cherishing the thought of the many chancesagainst its being she, walked steadily on. When he looked round again erecrossing the street, the crowd had vanished, the pavement was nearly empty, and a policeman who just then came up, had seen nothing of the occurrence, remarking only that the girls at the paper-mills were a rough lot. 

A moment more and his mind was busy with a passage in his sermon whichseemed about to escape his memory: it was still as impossible for him totalk freely about the things a minister is supposed to love best, as ithad been when he began to preach. It was not, certainly, out of thefulness of the heart that _his_ mouth ever spoke!

He sought the house of Mr. Robertson, the friend he had come to assist, hadsupper with him and his wife, and retired early. In the morning he went tohis friend's church, in the afternoon rehearsed his sermon to himself, andwhen the evening came, climbed the pulpit-stair, and soon appearedengrossed in its rites. But as he seemed to be pouring out his soul in thelong extempore prayer, he suddenly opened his eyes as if unconsciouslycompelled, and that moment saw, in the front of the gallery before him, aface he could not doubt to be that of Isy. Her gaze was fixed upon him; hesaw her shiver, and knew that she saw and recognized him. He felt himselfgrow blind. His head swam, and he felt as if some material force wasbending down his body sideways from her. Such, nevertheless, was his self-possession, that he reclosed his eyes, and went on with his prayer--if thatcould in any sense be prayer where he knew neither word he uttered, thinghe thought, nor feeling that moved him. With Claudius in _Hamlet_ he mighthave said, My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go!

But while yet speaking, and holding his eyes fast that he might not see heragain, his consciousness all at once returned--it seemed to him through amighty effort of the will, and upon that he immediately began to pridehimself. Instantly there-upon he was aware of his thoughts and words, andknew himself able to control his actions and speech. All the while, however, that he conducted the rest of the "service, " he was constantlyaware, although he did not again look at her, of the figure of Isy beforehim, with its gaze fixed motionless upon him, and began at last to wondervaguely whether she might not be dead, and come back from the grave to hismind a mysterious thought-spectre. But at the close of the sermon, when thepeople stood up to sing, she rose with them; and the half-dazed preachersat down, exhausted with emotion, conflict, and effort at self-command. When he rose once more for the benediction, she was gone; and yet again hetook refuge in the doubt whether she had indeed been present at all. 

When Mrs. Robertson had retired, and James was sitting with his host overtheir tumbler of toddy, a knock came to the door. Mr. Robertson went toopen it, and James's heart sank within him. But in a moment his hostreturned, saying it was a policeman to let him know that a woman was lyingdrunk at the bottom of his doorsteps, and to inquire what he wished donewith her. 

"I told him, " said Mr. Robertson, "to take the poor creature to thestation, and in the morning I would see her. When she's ill the next day, you see, " he added, "I may have a sort of chance with her; but it isseldom of any use. "

A horrible suspicion that it was Isy herself had seized on Blatherwick; andfor a moment he was half inclined to follow the men to the station; but hisfriend would be sure to go with him, and what might not come of it! Seeingthat she had kept silent so long, however, it seemed to him more thanprobable that she had lost all care about him, and if let alone would saynothing. Thus he reasoned, lost in his selfishness, and shrinking from thethought of looking the disreputable creature in the eyes. Yet the awfulconsciousness haunted him that, if she had fallen into drunken habits andpossibly worse, it was his fault, and the ruin of the once lovely creaturelay at his door, and his alone. 

He made haste to his room, and to bed, where for a long while he lay unableeven to think. Then all at once, with gathered force, the frightfulreality, the keen, bare truth broke upon him like a huge, cold wave; he hada clear vision of his guilt, and the vision was conscious of itself as_his_ guilt; he saw it rounded in a gray fog of life-chilling dismay. Whatwas he but a troth-breaker, a liar--and that in strong fact, not in feebletongue? "What am I, " said Conscience, "but a cruel, self-seeking, lovelesshorror--a contemptible sneak, who, in dread of missing the praises of men, crept away unseen, and left the woman to bear alone our common sin?" Whatwas he but a whited sepulchre, full of dead men's bones and alluncleanness?--a fellow posing in the pulpit as an example to the faithful, but knowing all the time that somewhere in the land lived a woman--once aloving, trusting woman--who could with a word hold him up to the world ahypocrite and a dastard--

 A fixed figure for the Time of scorn To point his slow unmoving finger at!

He sprang to the floor; the cold hand of an injured ghost seemed clutchingfeebly at his throat. But, in or out of bed, what could he do? Utterlyhelpless, he thought, but in truth not daring to look the question as towhat he could do in the face, he crept back ignominiously into his bed;and, growing a little less uncomfortable, began to reason with himself thatthings were not so bad as they had for that moment seemed; that manyanother had failed in like fashion with him, but his fault had beenforgotten, and had never reappeared against him! No culprit was everrequired to bear witness against himself! He must learn to discipline andrepress his over-sensitiveness, otherwise it would one day seize him at adisadvantage, and betray him into self-exposure!

Thus he reasoned--and sank back once more among the all but dead; the loudalarum of his rousing conscience ceased, and he fell asleep in the resolveto get away from Deemouth the first thing in the morning, before Mr. Robertson should be awake. How much better it had been for him to hold fasthis repentant mood, and awake to tell everything! but he was very far fromhaving even approached any such resolution. Indeed no practical idea ofhis, however much brooded over at night, had ever lived to bear fruit inthe morning; not once had he ever embodied in action an impulse towardatonement! He could welcome the thought of a final release from sin andsuffering at the dissolution of nature, but he always did his best toforget that at that very moment he was suffering because of wrong he haddone for which he was taking no least trouble to make amends. He had livedfor himself, to the destruction of one whom he had once loved, and to thedenial of his Lord and Master!

More than twice on his way home in the early morning, he all but turned togo back to the police-station, but it was, as usual, only _all but_, and hekept walking on. 

CHAPTER XII

Already, ere James's flight was discovered, morning saw Mr. Robertson onhis way to do what he might for the redemption of one of whom he knewlittle or nothing: the policemen returning from their night's duty, foundhim already at the door of the office. He was at once admitted, for he waswell known to most of them. He found the poor woman miserably recoveredfrom the effects of her dissipation, and looking so woebegone, that theheart of the good man was immediately filled with profoundest pity, recognizing before him a creature whose hope was wasted to the verge ofdespair. She neither looked up nor spoke; but what he could see of her faceappeared only ashamed, neither sullen nor vengeful. When he spoke to her, she lifted her head a little, but not her eyes to his face, confessingapparently that she had nothing to say for herself; and he saw her plainlyat the point of taking refuge in the Dee. Tenderly, as if to the littleone he had left behind him in bed, he spoke in her scarce listening earchild-soothing words of almost inarticulate sympathy, which yet his tonecarried where they were meant to go. She lifted her lost eyes at length, saw his face, and burst into tears. 

"Na, na, " she cried, through tearing sobs, "ye canna help me, sir! There'snaething 'at you or onybody can dee for me! But I'm near the mou o' thepit, and God be thankit, I'll be ower the rim o' 't or I hae grutten mylast greit oot!--For God's sake gie me a drink--a drink o' onything!"

"I daurna gie ye onything to ca' drink, " answered the minister, who couldscarcely speak for the swelling in his throat. "The thing to dee ye guid isa cup o' het tay! Ye canna hae had a moofu' this mornin! I hae a cab waitinme at the door, and ye'll jist get in, my puir bairn, and come awa hame wi'me! My wife'll be doon afore we win back, and she'll hae a cup o' tayready for ye in a moment! You and me 'ill hae oor brakfast thegither. "

"Ken ye what ye're sayin, sir? I daurna luik an honest wuman i' the face. I'm sic as ye ken naething aboot. "

"I ken a heap aboot fowk o' a' kin's--mair a heap, I'm thinkin, nor ye kenyersel!--I ken mair aboot yersel, tee, nor ye think; I hae seen ye i' myain kirk mair nor ance or twice. The Sunday nicht afore last I was preachinstraucht intil yer bonny face, and saw ye greitin, and maist grat mysel. Come awa hame wi' me, my dear; my wife's anither jist like mysel, an'llturn naething to ye but the smilin side o' her face, I s' un'ertak! She's afine, herty, couthy, savin kin' o' wuman, my wife! Come ye til her, andsee!"

Isy rose to her feet. 

"Eh, but I would like to luik ance mair intil the face o' a bonny, cleanwuman!" she said. "I'll gang, sir, " she went on, with sudden resolve "--only, I pray ye, sir, mak speed, and tak me oot o' the sicht o'fowk!"

"Ay, ay, come awa; we s' hae ye oot o' this in a moment, " answered Mr. Robertson. --"Put the fine doon to me, " he whispered to the inspector asthey passed him on their way out. 

The man returned his nod, and took no further notice. 

"I thoucht that was what would come o' 't!" he murmured to himself, lookingafter them with a smile. But indeed he knew little of what was going tocome of it!

The good minister, whose heart was the teacher of his head, and who was notashamed either of himself or his companion, showed Isy into their littlebreakfast-parlour, and running up the stair to his wife, told her he hadbrought the woman home, and wanted her to come down at once. Mrs. Robertson, who was dressing her one child, hurried her toilet, gave overthe little one to the care of her one servant, and made haste to welcomethe poor shivering night-bird, waiting with ruffled feathers below. Whenshe opened the door, the two women stood for a moment silently gazing oneach other--then the wife opened her arms wide, and the girl fled to theirshelter; but her strength failing her on the way, she fell to the floor. Instantly the other was down by her side. The husband came to her help; andbetween them they got her at once on the little couch. 

"Shall I get the brandy?" said Mrs. Robertson. 

"Try a cup of tea, " he answered. 

His wife made haste, and soon had the tea poured out and cooling. But Isystill lay motionless. Her hostess raised the helpless head upon her arm, put a spoonful of the tea to her lips, and found to her joy that she triedto swallow it. The next minute she opened her eyes, and would have risen;but the rescuing hand held her down. 

"I want to tell ye, " moaned Isy with feeble expostulation, "'at ye dinnaken wha ye hae taen intil yer hoose! Lat me up to get my breath, or I'll nobe able to tell ye. "

"Drink your tea, " answered the other, "and then say what you like. There'sno hurry. You'll have time enough. "

The poor girl opened her eyes wide, and gazed for a moment at Mrs. Robertson. Then she took the cup and drank the tea. Her new friend wenton--

"You must just be content to bide where you are a day or two. Ye're no tofash yersel aboot onything: I have clothes enough to give you all thechange you can want. Hold your tongue, please, and finish your tea. "

"Eh, mem, " cried Isy, "fowk 'ill say ill o' ye, gien they see the like o'me in yer hoose!"

"Lat them say, and say 't again! What's fowk but muckle geese!"

"But there's the minister and his character!" she persisted. 

"Hoots! what cares the minister?" said his wife. "Speir at him there, whathe thinks o' clash. "

"'Deed, " answered her husband, "I never heedit it eneuch to tell! There'sbut ae word I heed, and that's my Maister's!"

"Eh, but ye canna lift me oot o' the pit!" groaned the poor girl. 

"God helpin, I can, " returned the minister. "--But ye're no i' the pit yetby a lang road; and oot o' that road I s' hae ye, please God, afore anithernicht has darkent!"

"I dinna ken what's to come o' me!" again she groaned. 

"That we'll sune see! Brakfast's to come o' ye first, and syne my wife andme we'll sit in jeedgment upo ye, and redd things up. Min' ye're to saywhat ye like, and naither ill fowk nor unco guid sail come nigh ye. "

A pitiful smile flitted across Isy's face, and with it returned the almostbabyish look that used to form part of her charm. Like an obedient child, she set herself to eat and drink what she could; and when she had evidentlydone her best--

"Now put up your feet again on the sofa, and tell us everything, " said theminister. 

"No, " returned Isy; "I'm not at liberty to tell you _everything_. "

"Then tell us what you please--so long as it's true, and that I am sure itwill be, " he rejoined. 

"I will, sir, " she answered. 

For several moments she was silent, as if thinking how to begin; then, after a gasp or two, --

"I'm not a good woman, " she began. "Perhaps I am worse than you think me. --Oh, my baby! my baby!" she cried, and burst into tears. 

"There's nae that mony o' 's just what ither fowk think us, " said theminister's wife. "We're in general baith better and waur nor that. --Buttell me ae thing: what took ye, last nicht, straucht frae the kirk to thepublic? The twa haudna weel thegither!"

"It was this, ma'am, " she replied, resuming the more refined speech towhich, since living at Deemouth, she had been less accustomed--"I had ashock that night from suddenly seeing one in the church whom I had thoughtnever to see again; and when I got into the street, I turned so sick thatsome kind body gave me whisky, and that was how, not having been used to itfor some time, that I disgraced myself. But indeed, I have a much worsetrouble and shame upon me than that--one you would hardly believe, ma'am!"

"I understand, " said Mrs. Robertson, modifying her speech also the momentshe perceived the change in that of her guest: "you saw him in church--theman that got you into trouble! I thought that must be it!--won't you tellme all about it?"

"I will not tell his name. _I_ was the most in fault, for I knew better;and I would rather die than do him any more harm!--Good morning, ma'am!--Ithank you kindly, sir! Believe me I am not ungrateful, whatever else I maybe that is bad. "

She rose as she spoke, but Mrs. Robertson got to the door first, andstanding between her and it, confronted her with a smile. 

"Don't think I blame you for holding your tongue, my dear. I don't want youto tell. I only thought it might be a relief to you. I believe, if I werein the same case--or, at least, I hope so--that hot pincers wouldn't drawhis name out of me. What right has any vulgar inquisitive woman to know thething gnawing at your heart like a live serpent? I will never again ask youanything about him. --There! you have my promise!--Now sit down again, anddon't be afraid. Tell me what you please, and not a word more. The ministeris sure to find something to comfort you. "

"What can anybody say or do to comfort such as me, ma'am? I am lost--lostout of sight! Nothing can save me! The Saviour himself wouldn't open thedoor to a woman that left her suckling child out in the dark night!--That's what I did!" she cried, and ended with a wail as from a heart whosewound eternal years could never close. 

In a while growing a little calmer--

"I would not have you think, ma'am, " she resumed, "that I wanted to get ridof the darling. But my wits went all of a sudden, and a terror, I don'tknow of what, came upon me. Could it have been the hunger, do you think? Ilaid him down in the heather, and ran from him. How far I went, I do notknow. All at once I came to myself, and knew what I had done, and ran totake him up. But whether I lost my way back, or what I did, or how it was, I cannot tell, only I could not find him! Then for a while I think I musthave been clean out of my mind, and was always seeing him torn by thefoxes, and the corbies picking out his eyes. Even now, at night, every nowand then, it comes back, and I cannot get the sight out of my head! For awhile it drove me to drink, but I got rid of that until just last night, when again I was overcome. --Oh, if I could only keep from seeing thebeasts and birds at his little body when I'm falling asleep!"

She gave a smothered scream, and hid her face in her hands. Mrs. Robertson, weeping herself, sought to comfort her, but it seemed in vain. 

"The worst of it is, " Isy resumed, "--for I must confess everything, ma'am!--is that I cannot tell what I may have done in the drink. I mayeven have told his name, though I remember nothing about it! It must bemonths, I think, since I tasted a drop till last night; and now I've doneit again, and I'm not fit he should ever cast a look at me! My heart's justlike to break when I think I may have been false to him, as well as falseto his child! If all the devils would but come and tear me, I would say, thank ye, sirs!"

"My dear, " came the voice of the parson from where he sat listening toevery word she uttered, "my dear, naething but the han' o' the Son o'Man'll come nigh ye oot o' the dark, saft-strokin yer hert, and closin upthe terrible gash intil't. I' the name o' God, the saviour o' men, I tellye, dautie, the day 'ill come whan ye'll smile i' the vera face o' theLord himsel, at the thoucht o' what he has broucht ye throuw! Lord Christ, haud a guid grup o' thy puir bairn and hers, and gie her back her ain. Thywull be deen!--and that thy wull's a' for redemption!--Gang on wi' yertale, my lassie. "

"'Deed, sir, I can say nae mair--and seem to hae nae mair to say. --I'msome--some sick like!"

She fell back on the sofa, white as death. 

The parson was a big man; he took her up in his arms, and carried her to aroom they had always ready on the chance of a visit from "one of the leastof these. "

At the top of the stair stood their little daughter, a child of five orsix, wanting to go down to her mother, and wondering why she was notpermitted. 

"Who is it, moder?" she whispered, as Mrs. Robertson passed her, followingher husband and Isy. "Is she very dead?"

"No, darling, " answered her mother; "it is an angel that has lost her way, and is tired--so tired!--You must be very quiet, and not disturb her. Herhead is going to ache very much. "

The child turned and went down the stair, step by step, softly, saying--

"I will tell my rabbit not to make any noise--and to be as white as hecan. "

Once more they succeeded in bringing back to the light of consciousness herbeclouded spirit. She woke in a soft white bed, with two faces ofcompassion bending over her, closed her eyes again with a smile of sweetcontent, and was soon wrapt in a wholesome slumber. 

In the meantime, the caitiff minister had reached his manse, and found aghastly loneliness awaiting him--oh, how much deeper than that of the womanhe had forsaken! She had lost her repute and her baby; he had lost his God!He had never seen his shape, and had not his word abiding in him; and nowthe vision of him was closed in an unfathomable abyss of darkness, far, faraway from any point his consciousness could reach! The signs of God werearound him in the Book, around him in the world, around him in his ownexistence--but the signs only! God did not speak to him, did not manifesthimself to him. God was not where James Blatherwick had ever sought him; hewas not in any place where was the least likelihood of his ever looking foror finding him!

CHAPTER XIII

It must be remembered that Blatherwick knew nothing of the existence ofhis child: such knowledge might have modified the half-conscioussatisfaction with which, on his way home, he now and then saw a providencein the fact that he had been preserved from marrying a woman who had nowproved herself capable of disgracing him in the very streets. But duringhis slow journey of forty miles, most of which he made on foot, hounded onfrom within to bodily motion, he had again, as in the night, to passthrough many an alternation of thought and feeling and purpose. To and froin him, up and down, this way and that, went the changing currents ofself-judgment, of self-consolement, and of fresh-gathering dread. Never forone persistent minute was his mind clear, his purpose determined, his lineset straight for honesty. He must live up--not to the law ofrighteousness, but to the show of what a minister ought to be! he mustappear unto men! In a word, he must keep up the deception he had begun inchildhood, and had, until of late years, practised unknowingly! Now heknew it, and went on, not knowing how to get rid of it; or rather, shrinking in utter cowardice from the confession which alone could have sethim free. Now he sought only how to conceal his deception and falseness. Hehad no pleasure in them, but was consciously miserable in knowing himselfnot what he seemed--in being compelled, as he fancied himself in excuse, tolook like one that had not sinned. In his heart he grumbled that God shouldhave forsaken him so far as to allow him to disgrace himself before hisconscience. He did not yet see that his foulness was ingrained; that theEthiopian could change his skin, or the leopard his spots, as soon as he;that he had never yet looked purity in the face; that the fall whichdisgraced him in his own eyes was but the necessary outcome of hischaracter--that it was no accident but an unavoidable result; that histrue nature had but disclosed itself, and appeared--as everything hid mustbe known, everything covered must be revealed. Even _to begin_ thepurification without which his moral and spiritual being must perisheternally, he must dare to look on himself as he was: he _would_ notrecognize himself, and thought he lay and would lie hid from all. Dantedescribes certain of the redeemed as lying each concealed in his or her owncocoon of emitted light: James lay hidden like a certain insect in its own_gowk-spittle_. It is strange, but so it is, that many a man will neveryield to see himself until he become aware of the eyes of other men fixedupon him; they seeing him, and he knowing that they see him, then first, even to himself, will he be driven to confess what he has long all butknown. Blatherwick's hour was on its way, slow-coming, but no longer to beshunned. His soul was ripening to self-declaration. The ugly self mustblossom, must show itself the flower, the perfection of that evil thing hecounted himself! What a hold has not God upon us in this inevitableripening of the unseen into the visible and present! The flower is there, and must appear!

In the meantime he suffered, and went on in silence, walking like a servantof the Ancient of Days, and knowing himself a whited sepulchre. Within himhe felt the dead body that could not rest until it was laid bare to thesun; but all the time he comforted himself that he had not fallen a secondtime, and that the _once_ would not be remembered against him: did not thefact that it was forgotten, most likely was never known, indicate theforgiveness of God? And so, unrepentant, he remained unforgiven, andcontinued a hypocrite and the slave of sin. 

But the hideous thing was not altogether concealed; something showed underthe covering whiteness! His mother saw that something shapeless hauntedhim, and often asked herself what it could be, but always shrank even fromconjecturing. His father felt that he had gone from him utterly, and thathis son's feeding of the flock had done nothing to bring him and hisparents nearer to each other! What could be hidden, he thought, beneath themask of that unsmiling face?

But there was a humble observer who saw deeper than the parents--JohnMacLear, the soutar. 

One day, after about a fortnight, the minister walked into the workshop ofthe soutar, and found him there as usual. His hands were working awaydiligently, but his thoughts had for some time been brooding over theblessed fact, that God is not the God of the perfect only, but of thegrowing as well; not the God of the righteous only, but of such as hungerand thirst after righteousness. 

"God blaw on the smoking flax, and tie up the bruised reed!" he was sayingto himself aloud, when in walked the minister. 

Now, as in some other mystical natures, a certain something had beendeveloped in the soutar not unlike a spirit of prophecy--an insight which, seemingly without exercise of the will, sometimes laid bare to him in ameasure the thoughts and intents of hearts in which he was more thanusually interested; or perhaps it was rather a faculty, workingunconsciously, of putting signs together, and drawing from theminstantaneous conclusion of the fact at which they pointed. After theirgreeting, he suddenly looked up at his visitor with a certain fixedattention: the mere glance had shown him that he looked ill, and he now sawthat something in the man's heart was eating at it like a canker. Therewithat once arose in his brain the question: could he be the father of thelittle one crowing in the next room? But he shut it into the darkestcloset of his mind, shrinking from the secret of another soul, as from theveil of the Holy of Holies! The next moment, however, came the thought:what if the man stood in need of the offices of a friend? It was one thingto pry into a man's secret; another, to help him escape from it! As out ofthis thought the soutar sat looking at him for a moment, the minister feltthe hot blood rush to his cheeks. 

"Ye dinna luik that weel, minister, " said the soutar: "is there onythingthe maitter wi' ye, sir?"

"Nothing worth mentioning, " answered the parson. "I have sometimes a touchof headache in the early morning, especially when I have sat later thanusual over my books the night before; but it always goes off during theday. "

"Ow weel, sir, that's no, as ye say, a vera sairious thing! I couldna helpfancyin ye had something on yer min' by ord'nar!"

"Naething, naething, " answered James with a feeble laugh. "--But, " he wenton--and something seemed to send the words to his lips without giving himtime to think--"it is curious you should say that, for I was just thinkingwhat was the real intent of the apostle in his injunction to confess ourfaults one to another. "

The moment he uttered the words he felt as if he had proclaimed his secreton the housetop; and he would have begun the sentence afresh, with somenotion of correcting it; but again he knew the hot blood shoot to hisface. --"I _must_ go on with something!" he felt rather than said tohimself, "or those sharp eyes will see through and through me!"

"It came into my mind, " he went on, "that I should like to know what _you_thought about the passage: it cannot surely give the least ground forauricular confession! I understand perfectly how a man may want to consulta friend in any difficulty--and that friend naturally the minister; but--"

This was by no means a thing he had meant to say, but he seemed carried onto say he knew not what. It was as if, without his will, the will of Godwas driving the man to the brink of a pure confession--to the cleansing ofhis stuffed bosom "of that perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart. "

"Do you think, for instance, " he continued, thus driven, "that a man isbound to tell _everything_--even to the friend he loves best?"

"I think, " answered the soutar after a moment's thought, "that we mustanswer the _what_, before we enter upon the _how much_. And I think, firstof all we must ask--to _whom_ are we bound to confess?--and there surelythe answer is, to him to whom we have done the wrong. If we have beengrumbling in our hearts, it is to God we must confess: who else has to dowith the matter? To _Him_ we maun flee the moment oor eyes are opent towhat we've been aboot! But, gien we hae wranged ane o' oor fallow-craturs, wha are we to gang til wi' oor confession but that same fallow-cratur? Itseems to me we maun gang to that man first--even afore we gang to Godhimsel. Not one moment must we indulge procrastination on the plea o'prayin! From our vera knees we maun rise in haste, and say to brother orsister, 'I've done ye this or that wrang: forgie me. ' God can wait for yourprayer better nor you, or him ye've wranged, can wait for your confession!Efter that, ye maun at ance fa' to your best endeevour to mak up for thewrang. 'Confess your sins, ' I think it means, 'each o' ye to the itheragain whom ye hae dene the offence. '--Divna ye think that's the cowmonsenseo' the maitter?"

"Indeed, I think you must be right!" replied the minister, who satrevolving only how best, alas, to cover his retreat! "I will go home atonce and think it all over. Indeed, I am even now all but convinced thatwhat you say must be what the Apostle intended!"

With a great sigh, of which he was not aware, Blatherwick rose and walkedfrom the kitchen, hoping he looked--not guilty, but sunk in thought. Intruth he was unable to think. Oppressed and heavy-laden with the sense of aduty too unpleasant for performance, he went home to his cheerless manse, where his housekeeper was the only person he had to speak to, a womanincapable of comforting anybody. There he went straight to his study, but, kneeling, found he could not pray the simplest prayer; not a word wouldcome, and he could not pray without words! He was dead, and in hell--so farperished that he felt nothing. He rose, and sought the open air; it broughthim no restoration. He had not heeded his friend's advice, had notentertained the thought of the one thing possible to him--had not moved, even in spirit, toward Isy! The only comfort he could now find for hisguilty soul was the thought that he could do nothing, for he did not knowwhere Isy was to be found. When he remembered the next moment that hisfriend Robertson must be able to find her, he soothed his conscience withthe reflection that there was no coach till the next morning, and in themeantime he could write: a letter would reach him almost as soon as hecould himself!

But what then would Robertson think? He might give his wife the letter toread! She might even read it of herself, for they concealed nothing fromeach other! So he only walked the faster, tired himself, and earned anappetite as the result of his day's work! He ate a good dinner, althoughwith little enjoyment, and fell fast asleep in his chair. No letter waswritten to Robertson that day. No letter of such sort was ever written. Thespirit was not willing, and the flesh was weakness itself. 

In the evening he took up a learned commentary on the Book of Job; but henever even approached the discovery of what Job wanted, received, and wassatisfied withal. He never saw that what he himself needed, but did notdesire, was the same thing--even a sight of God! He never discovered that, when God came to Job, Job forgot all he had intended to say to him--did notask him a single question--knew that all was well. The student of Scriptureremained blind to the fact that the very presence of the Living One, of theFather of men, proved sufficient in itself to answer every question, tostill every doubt! But then James's heart was not pure like Job's, andtherefore he could never have seen God; he did not even desire to see him, and so could see nothing as it was. He read with the blindness of the devilin his heart. 

In Marlowe's _Faust_, the student asks Mephistopheles--

 How comes it then that thou art out of hell?

And the demon answers him--

 Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it;

and again--

 Where we are is hell; And where hell is there must we ever be: . .. When all the world dissolves, And every creature shall be purified, All places shall be hell that are not heaven;

and yet again--

 I tell thee I am damned, and now in hell;

and it was thus James fared; and thus he went to bed. 

And while he lay there sleepless, or walked in his death to and fro in theroom, his father and mother, some three miles away, were talking about him. 

CHAPTER XIV

For some time they had lain silent, thinking about him by no meanshappily. They were thinking how little had been their satisfaction in theirminister-son; and had gone back in their minds to a certain time, longbefore, when conferring together about him, a boy at school. 

Even then the heart of the mother had resented his coldness, his seemingunconsciousness of his parents as having any share or interest in his lifeor prospects. Scotch parents are seldom demonstrative to each other or totheir children; but not the less in them, possibly the hotter because oftheir outward coldness, burns the causal fire, the central, the deepest--that eternal fire, without which the world would turn to a frozen clod, thelove of the parent for the child. That must burn while _the_ Father lives!that must burn until the universe _is_ the Father and his children, andnone beside. That fire, however long held down and crushed together by theweight of unkindled fuel, must go on to gather heat, and, gathering, itmust glow, and at last break forth in the scorching, yea devouring flamesof a righteous indignation: the Father must and _will_ be supreme, thathis children perish not! But as yet _The Father_ endured and was silent;and the child-parents also must endure and be still! In the meantime theirson remained hidden from them as by an impervious moral hedge; he nevercame out from behind it, never stood clear before them, and they wereunable to break through to him: within his citadel of indifference therewas no angelic traitor to draw back the bolts of its iron gates, and letthem in. They had gone on hoping, and hoping in vain, for some holy, lovely change in him; but at last had to confess it a relief when he leftthe house, and went to Edinburgh. 

But the occasion to which I refer was long before that. 

The two children were in bed and asleep, and the parents were lying then, as they lay now, sleepless. 

"Hoo's Jeemie been gettin on the day?" said his father. 

"Well enough, I suppose, " answered his mother, who did not then speakScotch quite so broad as her husband's, although a good deal broader thanher mother, the wife of a country doctor, would have permitted when she wasa child; "he's always busy at his books. He's a good boy, and a diligent;there's no gainsayin that! But as to hoo he's gettin on, I can beir notestimony. He never lets a word go from him as to what he's doin, one wayor anither. 'What _can_ he be thinkin aboot?' I say whiles to mysel--sometimes ower and ower again. When I gang intil the parlour, where healways sits till he has done his lessons, he never lifts his heid to showthat he hears me, or cares wha's there or wha isna. And as soon as he'slearnt them, he taks a buik and gangs up til his room, or oot aboot thehoose, or intil the cornyard or the barn, and never comes nigh me!--Isometimes won'er gien he would ever miss me deid!" she ended, with a greatsigh. 

"Hoot awa, wuman! dinna tak on like that, " returned her husband. "Theladdie's like the lave o' laddies! They're a' jist like pup-doggies tilltheir een comes oppen, and they ken them 'at broucht them here. He's bun'to mak a guid man in time, and he canna dee that ohn learnt to be a guidson to her 'at bore him!--Ye canna say 'at ever he contert ye! Ye haetellt me that a hunner times!"

"I have that! But I would hae had no occasion to dwall upo' the fac', gienhe had ever gi'en me, noo or than, jist a wee bit sign o' ony affection!"

"Ay, doobtless! but signs are nae preefs! The affection, as ye ca' 't, maybe there, and the signs o' 't wantin!--But I ken weel hoo the hert o' ye 'sworkin, my ain auld dautie!" he added, anxious to comfort her who wasdearer to him than son or daughter. 

"I dinna think it wad be weel, " he resumed after a pause, "for me to sayonything til 'im aboot his behaviour til 's mither: I dinna believe he wudken what I was aimin at! I dinna believe he has a notion o' onything amissin himsel, and I fear he wad only think I was hard upon him, and no' fair. Ye see, gien a thing disna come o' 'tsel, no cryin upo' 't 'll gar 't liftits heid--sae lang, at least, as the man kens naething aboot it!"

"I dinna doobt ye're right, Peter, " answered his wife; "I ken weel thatflytin 'ill never gar love spread oot his wings--excep' it be to flee awa'!Naething but shuin can come o' flytin!"

"It micht be even waur nor shuin!" rejoined Peter. "--But we better gang tiloor sleeps, lass!--We hae ane anither, come what may!"

"That's true, Peter; but aye the mair I hae you, the mair I want myJeemie!" cried the poor mother. 

The father said no more. But, after a while, he rose, and stole softly tohis son's room. His wife stole after him, and found him on his knees by thebedside, his face buried in the blankets, where his boy lay asleep withcalm, dreamless countenance. 

She took his hand, and led him back to bed. 

"To think, " she moaned as they went, "'at yon's the same bairnie I glowertat till my sowl ran oot at my een! I min' weel hoo I leuch and grat, baithat ance, to think I was the mother o' a man-child! and I thought I kennedweel what was i' the hert o' Mary, whan she claspit the blessed ane til herboasom!"

"May that same bairnie, born for oor remeid, bring oor bairn til his richtmin' afore he's ower auld to repent!" responded the father in a brokenvoice. 

"What for, " moaned Marion, "was the hert o' a mither put intil me? What forwas I made a wuman, whause life is for the beirin o' bairns to the greatFather o' a' gien this same was to be my reward?--Na, na, Lord, " she wenton, checking herself, "I claim naething but thy wull; and weel I ken yewouldna hae me think siclike thy wull!"

CHAPTER XV

It would be too much to say that the hearts of his parents took no pleasurein the advancement of their son, such as it was. I suspect the mother wasglad to be proud where she could find no happiness--proud with the lovethat lay incorruptible in her being. But the love that is all on one side, though it may be stronger than death, can hardly be so strong as life! Apoor, maimed, one-winged thing, such love cannot soar into any region ofconscious bliss. Even when it soars into the region where God himselfdwells, it is but to partake there of the divine sorrow which hisheartless children cause him. My reader may well believe that father normother dwelt much upon what their neighbours called James's success--orcared in the least to talk about it: that they would have felt to be merehypocrisy, while hearty and genuine relations were so far from perfectbetween them. Never to human being, save the one to the other, and that nowbut very seldom, did they allude to the bitterness which their own heartsknew; for to speak of it would have seemed almost equivalent to disowningtheir son. And alas the daughter was gone to whom the mother had at onetime been able to bemoan herself, knowing she understood and shared intheir misery! For Isobel would gladly have laid down her life to kindle inJames's heart such a love to their parents as her own. 

We may now understand a little, into what sort of man the lad JamesBlatherwick had grown. When he left Stonecross for the University, it waswith scarce a backward look; nothing was in his heart but eagerness for thecoming conflict. Having gained there one of its highest bursaries, he neverspent a thought, as he donned his red gown, on the son of the poor widowwho had competed with him, and who, failing, had to leave ambition behindhim and take a place in a shop--where, however, he soon became able tokeep, and did keep, his mother in what was to her nothing less than happyluxury; while the successful James--well, so far my reader already knowsabout him. 

As often as James returned home for the vacations, things, as between himand his parents, showed themselves unaltered; and by his third return, theheart of his sister had ceased to beat any faster at the thought of hisarrival: she knew that he would but shake hands limply, let hers drop, andthe same moment be set down to read. Before the time for taking his degreearrived, Isobel was gone to the great Father. James never missed her, andneither wished nor was asked to go home to her funeral. To his mother hewas never anything more or less than quite civil; she never asked him to doanything for her. He came and went as he pleased, cared for nothing done onthe farm or about the house, and seemed, in his own thoughts and studies, to have more than enough to occupy him. He had grown a powerful as well ashandsome youth, and had dropped almost every sign of his country breeding. He hardly ever deigned a word in his mother-dialect, but spoke good Englishwith a Scotch accent. Neither had he developed any of the abominableaffectations by which not a few such as he have imagined to repudiatetheir origin. 

His father had not then first to discover that his son was far too fine agentleman to show any interest in agriculture, or put out his hand to theleast share in that oldest and most dignified of callings. His mothercontinued to look forward, although with fading interest, to the time whenhe should be--the messenger of a gospel which he nowise understood; but hisfather did not at all share her anticipation; and she came to know ere longthat to hear him preach would but renew and intensify a misery to which shehad become a little accustomed in their ordinary intercourse. The fatherfelt that his boy had either left him a long way off, or had never at anytime come near him. He seemed to stand afar upon some mountain-top ofconscious or imagined superiority. 

James, as one having no choice, lived at _home_, so called by custom anduse, but lived as one come of another breed than his parents, having withtheirs but few appreciable points of contact. Most conventional of youths, he yet wrote verses in secret, and in his treasure-closet worshipped Byron. What he wrote he seldom showed, and then only to one or two of his fellow-students. Possibly he wrote only to prove to himself that he could do thatalso, for he never doubted his faculty in any direction. When he went toEdinburgh--to learn theology, forsooth!--he was already an accomplishedmathematician, and a yet better classic, with some predilections forscience, and a very small knowledge of the same: his books showed for thetheology, and for the science, an occasional attempt to set his fatherright on some point of chemistry. His first aspiration was to show himselfa gentleman in the eyes of the bubblehead calling itself Society--of whichin fact he knew nothing; and the next, to have his eloquence, at presentexistent only in an ambitious imagination, recognized by the public. Suchwere the two devils, or rather the two forms of the one devil Vanity, thatpossessed him. He looked down on his parents, and the whole circumstanceof their ordered existence, as unworthy of him, because old-fashioned andbucolic, occupied only with God's earth and God's animals, and havingnothing to do with the shows of life. And yet to the simply honourable, tosuch of gentle breeding as despised mere show, the ways of life in theirhouse would have seemed altogether admirable: the homely, yet notunfastidious modes and conditions of the unassuming homestead, would haveappeared to them not a little attractive. But James took no interest inany of them, and, if possible, yet less in the ways of the tradesmen andcraftsmen of the neighbouring village. He never felt the common humanitythat made him one with them, did not in his thoughts associate himself atall with them. Had he turned his feeling into thoughts and words, he wouldhave said, "I cannot help being the son of a farmer, but at least mymother's father was a doctor; and had I been consulted, my father shouldhave been at least an officer in one of his majesty's services, not atreader of dung or artificial manure!" The root of his folly lay in thegroundless self-esteem of the fellow; fostered, I think, by a certainliterature which fed the notion, if indeed it did not plainly inculcatethe _duty_ of rising in the world. To such as he, the praise of men maywell seem the patent of their nobility; but the man whom we call _TheSaviour_, and who knew the secret of Life, warned his followers that theymust not seek that sort of distinction if they would be the children of theFather who claimed them. 

I have said enough, perhaps too much, of this most uninteresting of men!How he came to be born such, is not for my speculation: had he remainedsuch, his story would not have been for my telling. How he becamesomething better, it remains my task to try to set forth. 

I now complete the talk that followed the return of the simple couple tobed. "I was jist thinkin, Peter, " said Marion, after they had again lainsilent for a while, "o' the last time we spak thegither aboot the laddie--it maun be nigh sax year sin syne, I'm thinkin!"

"'Deed I canna say! ye may be richt, Mirran, " replied her spouse. "It's nosic a cheery subjec' 'at we sud hae muckle to say to ane anither anent it!He's a man noo, and weel luikit upo'; but it maks unco little differ to hisparents! He's jist as dour as ever, and as far as man could weel be fraethem he cam o'!--never a word to the ane or the ither o' 's! Gien we wartwa dowgs, he couldna hae less to say til's, and micht weel hae mair! I s'warran' Frostie says mair in ae half-hoor to his tyke, nor Jeemie has saidto you or me sin' first he gaed to the college!"

"Bairns is whiles a queer kin' o' a blessin!" remarked the mother. "But, eh, Peter! it's what may lie ahint the silence that frichts me!"

"Lass, ye're frichtin _me_ noo! What _div_ ye mean?"

"Ow naething!" returned Marion, bursting into tears. "But a' at ance it wasborne in upo me, that there maun be something to accoont for the thing. Atthe same time I daurna speir at God himsel what that thing can be. Forthere's something waur noo, and has been for some time, than ever was thereafore! He has sic a luik, as gien he saw nor heard onything but ae thing, the whilk ae thing keeps on inside him, and winna wheesht. It's an awfu'thing to say o' a mither's ain laddie; and to hae said it only to my ainman, and the father o' the laddie, maks my hert like to brak!--it's asgien I had been fause to my ain flesh and blude but to think it o' 'im!--Eh, Peter, what _can_ it be?"

"Ow jist maybe naething ava'! Maybe he's in love, and the lass winna heartil 'im!"

"Na, Peter; love gars a man luik up, no doon at his ain feet! It gars himfling his heid back, and set his een richt afore him--no turn them in upohis ain inside! It maks a man straucht i' the back, strong i' the airm, andbauld i' the hert. --Didna it you, Peter?"

"Maybe it did; I dinna min' vera weel. --But I see love can hardly be thething that's amiss wi' the lad. Still, even his parents maun tak tent o'jeedgin--specially ane o' the Lord's ministers--maybe ane o' the Lord's ainelec'!"

"It's awfu' to think--I daurna say 't--I daurna maist think the words o''t, Peter, but it _wull_ cry oot i' my vera hert!--Steik the door, Peter--and ticht, that no a stray stirk may hear me!--Was a minister o' the gospelever a heepocreete, Peter?--like ane o' the auld scribes and Pharisees, Peter?--Wadna it be ower terrible, Peter, to be permittit?--Gien our ainonly son was--"

But here she broke down; she could not finish the frightful sentence. Thefarmer again left his bed, and dropt upon a chair by the side of it. Thenext moment he sank on his knees, and hiding his face in his hands, groaned, as from a thicket of torture--

"God in haven, hae mercy upon the haill lot o' 's. "

Then, apparently unconscious of what he did, he went wandering from theroom, down to the kitchen, and out to the barn on his bare feet, closingthe door of the house behind him. In the barn he threw himself, facedownward, on a heap of loose straw, and there lay motionless. His wife weptalone in her bed, and hardly missed him: it required of her no reflectionto understand whither he had gone, or what he was doing. He was crying, like King Lear from the bitterness of an outraged father's heart, to theFather of fathers:

"God, ye're a father yersel, " he groaned; "and sae ye ken hoo it's rivin atmy hert!--Na, Lord, ye dinna ken; for ye never had a doobt aboot _your_son!--Na, I'm no blamin Jeemie, Lord; I'm no cryin oot upo _him_; for yeken weel hoo little I ken aboot him: he never opened the buik o' his hertto _me_! Oh God, grant that he hae naething to hide; but gien he has, Lord, pluck it oot o' 'im, and _him_ oot o' the glaur! latna him stickthere. I kenna hoo to shape my petition, for I'm a' i' the dark; butdeliver him some gait, Lord, I pray thee, for his mither's sake!--ye kenwhat she is!--_I_ dinna coont for onything, but ye ken _her_!--Lord, deliver the hert o' her frae the awfu'est o' a' her fears. --Lord, ahypocreet! a Judas-man!"

More of what he said, I cannot tell; somehow this much has reached my ears. He remained there upon the straw while hour after hour passed, pleadingwith the great Father for his son; his soul now lost in dull fatigue, nowuttering itself in groans for lack of words, until at length the dawnlooked in on the night-weary earth, and into the two sorrow-laden hearts, bringing with it a comfort they did not seek to understand. 

CHAPTER XVI

But it brought no solace to the mind of the weak, hard-hearted, and guiltyson. He had succeeded once more in temporarily soothing his conscience withsome narcotic of false comfort, and now slept the sleep of the houseless, whose covering was narrower than he could wrap himself in. Ah, thosenights! Alas for the sleepless human soul out in the eternal cold! But soheartless was James, that, if his mother had come to him in the morningwith her tear-dimmed eyes, he would never have asked himself what couldail her; would never even have seen that she was unhappy; least of allwould have suspected himself the cause of her red eyes and aching head, orthat the best thing in him was that mental uneasiness of which he wasconstantly aware. Thank God, there was no way round the purifying fire! hecould not escape it; he _must_ pass through it!

CHAPTER XVII

Little knows the world what a power among men is the man who simply andreally believes in him who is Lord of the world to save men from theirsins! He may be neither wise nor prudent; he may be narrow and dim-sightedeven in the things he loves best; they may promise him much, and yield himbut a poor fragment of the joy that might be and ought to be his; he maypresent them to others clothed in no attractive hues, or in any word ofpower; and yet, if he has but that love to his neighbour which is rootedin, and springs from love to his God, he is always a redeeming, reconciling influence among his fellows. The Robertsons were genial ofheart, loving and tender toward man or woman in need of them; their doorwas always on the latch for such to enter. If the parson insisted on thewrath of God against sin, he did not fail to give assurance of Histenderness toward such as had fallen. Together the godly pair at lengthpersuaded Isobel of the eager forgiveness of the Son of Man. They assuredher that he could not drive from him the very worst of sinners, but loved--nothing less than tenderly _loved_ any one who, having sinned, now turnedher face to the Father. She would doubtless, they said, have to see hertrespass in the eyes of unforgiving women, but the Lord would lift herhigh, and welcome her to the home of the glad-hearted. 

But poor Isy, who regarded her fault as both against God and the man whohad misled her, and was sick at the thought of being such as she judgedherself, insisted that nothing God himself could do, could ever restoreher, for nothing could ever make it that she had not fallen: such acontradiction, such an impossibility alone could make her clean! God mightbe ready to forgive her, but He could not love her! Jesus might have madesatisfaction for her sin, but how could that make any difference in or toher? She was troubled that Jesus should have so suffered, but that couldnot give her back her purity, or the peace of mind she once possessed!That was gone for ever! The life before her took the appearance of anunchanging gloom, a desert region whence the gladness had withered, andwhence came no purifying wind to blow from her the odours of the grave bywhich she seemed haunted! Never to all eternity could she be innocentagain! Life had no interest for her! She was, and must remain just what shewas; for, alas, she could not cease to be!

Such thoughts had at one period ravaged her life, but they had for sometime been growing duller and deader: now once more revived by goodness andsympathy, they had resumed their gnawing and scorching, and she had grownyet more hateful to herself. Even the two who befriended and comforted her, could never, she thought, cease to regard her as what they knew she was!But, strange to say, with this revival of her suffering, came also arequickening of her long dormant imagination, favoured and cherished, doubtless, by the peace and love that surrounded her. First her dreams, then her broodings began to be haunted with sweet embodiments. As if theagonized question of the guilty Claudius were answered to her, to assureher that there _was_ "rain enough in the sweet heavens to wash her white assnow, " she sometimes would wake from a dream where she stood in blessednakedness with a deluge of cool, comforting rain pouring upon her from thesweetness of those heavens--and fall asleep again to dream of a softstrong west wind chasing from her the offensive emanations of the tomb, that seemed to have long persecuted her nostrils as did the blood ofDuncan those of the wretched Lady Macbeth. And every night to her sinfulbosom came back the soft innocent hands of the child she had lost--whenever and again her dream would change, and she would be Hagar, casting herchild away, and fleeing from the sight of his death. More than once shedreamed that an angel came to her, and went out to look for her boy--onlyto return and lay him in her arms grievously mangled by some horrid beast. 

When the first few days of her sojourn with the good Samaritans were over, and she had gathered strength enough to feel that she ought no longer to beburdensome to them, but look for work, they positively refused to let herleave them before her spirit also had regained some vital tone, and she wasable to "live a little"; and to that end they endeavoured to revive in herthe hope of finding her lost child: setting inquiry on foot in everydirection, they promised to let her know the moment when her presenceshould begin to cause them inconvenience. 

"Let you go, child?" her hostess had exclaimed: "God forbid! Go you shallnot until you go for your own sake: you cannot go for ours!"

"But I'm such a burden to you--and so useless!"

"Was the Lord a burden to Mary and Lazarus, think ye, my poor bairn?"rejoined Mrs. Robertson. 

"Don't, ma'am, please!" sobbed Isy. 

"Inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of these, ye did it to me!"insisted her hostess. 

"That doesna apply, ma'am, " objected Isy. "I'm nane o' his!"

"Who is then? Who was it he came to save? Are you not one of his lostsheep? Are you not weary and heavy-laden? Will you never let him feel athome with you? Are _you_ to say who he is to love and who he isn't? Are_you_ to tell him who are fit to be counted his, and who are not goodenough?"

Isy was silent for a long time. The foundations of her coming peace werebeing dug deeper, and laid wider. 

She still found it impossible, from the disordered state of her mind at thetime, to give any notion of whereabout she had been when she laid her childdown, and leaving him, could not again find him. And Maggie, who loved himpassionatately and believed him wilfully abandoned, cherished no desire todiscover one who could claim him, but was unworthy to have him. For a longtime, therefore, neither she nor her father ever talked, or encouraged talkabout him; whence certain questing busybodies began to snuff and givetongue. It was all very well, they said, for the cobbler and his Maggie topose as rescuers and benefactors: but whose was the child? His growthnevertheless went on all the same, and however such hints might seem toconcern him, happily they never reached him. Maggie flattered herself, indeed, that never in this world would they reach him, but would die awayin the void, or like a fallen wave against the heedless shore! And yet, all the time, in the not so distant city, a loving woman was weeping andpining for lack of him, whose conduct, in the eyes of the Robertsons, wasnot merely blameless, but sweetly and manifestly true, constantly yieldingfuel to the love that encompassed her. But, although mentally andspiritually she was growing rapidly, she seemed to have lost all hope. For, deeper in her soul, and nearer the root of her misery than even the lossof her child, lay the character and conduct of the man to whom her loveseemed inextinguishable. His apostasy from her, his neglect of her, andher constantly gnawing sense of pollution, burned at the bands of herlife; and her friends soon began to fear that she was on the verge of aslow downward slide, upon which there is seldom any turning. 

The parson and his wife had long been on friendliest terms with the farmerof Stonecross and his wife; and, brooding on the condition of their guest, it was natural that the thought of Mrs. Blatherwick should occur to them asone who might be able to render them the help they needed for her. Difficulties were in the way, it was true, chiefly that of conveying a trueconception of the nature and character of the woman in whom they desiredher interest; but if Mrs. Blatherwick were once to see her, there would beno fear of the result: received at the farm, she was certain in no way tocompromise them! They were confident she would never belie the characterthey were prepared to give her. Neither was there any one at the farm forwhom it was possible to dread intercourse with her, seeing that, since thedeath of their only daughter, they had not had a servant in the house. Itwas concluded therefore between them that Mr. Robertson should visit theirfriends at Stonecross, and tell them all they knew about Isy. 

It was a lovely morning in the decline of summer, the corn nearly fullgrown, but still green, without sign of the coming gold of perfection, whenthe minister mounted the top of the coach, to wait, silent and a littleanxious, for the appearance of the coachman from the office, thrusting thewaybill into the pocket of his huge greatcoat, to gather his reins, andclimb heavily to his perch. A journey of four hours, through a not veryinteresting country, but along a splendid road, would carry him to thevillage where the soutar lived, and where James Blatherwick was parson!There a walk of about three miles awaited him--a long and somewhat wearyway to the town-minister--accustomed indeed to tramping the hardpavements, but not to long walks unbroken by calls. Climbing at last thehill on which the farmhouse stood, be caught sight of Peter Blatherwick ina neighbouring field of barley stubble, with the reins of a pair ofpowerful Clydesdales in his hands, wrestling with the earth as it stroveto wrench from his hold the stilts of the plough whose share and coulterhe was guiding through it. Peter's delight was in the open air, and hardwork in it. He was as far from the vulgar idea that a man rose in thescale of honour when he ceased to labour with his hands, as he was from thefancy that a man rose in the kingdom of heaven when he was made a bishop. 

As to his higher nature, the farmer believed in God--that is, he tried todo what God required of him, and thus was on the straight road to know him. He talked little about religion, and was no partisan. When he heard peopleadvocating or opposing the claims of this or that party in the church, hewould turn away with a smile such as men yield to the talk of children. Hehad no time, he would say, to spend on such disputes: he had enough to doin trying to practise what was beyond dispute. 

He was a reading man, who not merely drank at every open source he cameacross, but thought over what he read, and was, therefore, a man of trueintelligence, who was regarded by his neighbours with more than ordinaryrespect. He had been the first in the district to lay hold of thediscoveries in chemistry applicable to agriculture, and had made use ofthem, with notable results, upon his own farm; setting thus an examplewhich his neighbours were so ready to follow, that the region, nowiseremarkable for its soil, soon became remarkable for its crops. The note-worthiest thing in him, however, was his _humanity_, shown first andchiefly in the width and strength of his family affections. He had a strongdrawing, not only to his immediate relations, but to all of his blood; whowere not few, for he came of an ancient family, long settled in theneighbourhood. In his worldly affairs he was well-to-do, having added not alittle to the little his father had left him; but he was no lover ofmoney, being open-handed even to his wife, upon whom first your money-grubis sure to exercise his parsimony. There was, however, at Stonecross, little call to spend and less temptation from without, the farm itselfbeing equal to the supply of almost every ordinary necessity. 

In disposition Peter Blatherwick was a good-humoured, even merry man, witha playful answer almost always ready for a greeting neighbour. 

The minister did not however go on to join the farmer, but went to thehouse, which stood close at hand, with its low gable toward him. Latesummer still lorded it in the land; only a few fleecy clouds shared theblue of the sky with the ripening sun, and on the hot ridges the air pulsedand trembled, like vaporized layers of mother-of-pearl. 

At the end of the idle lever, no sleepy old horse was now making hismonotonous rounds; his late radiance, born of age and sunshine, wasquenched in the dark of the noonday stall. But the peacock still struttedamong the ricks, as conscious of his glorious plumage, as regardless of theugliness of his feet as ever; now and then checking the rhythmic movementof his neck, undulating green and blue, to scratch the ground with thosefeet, and dart his beak, with apparently spiteful greed, at some tinycrystal of quartz or pickle of grain they exposed; or, from the toweringsteeple of his up lifted throat, to utter his self-satisfaction in ahideous cry. 

In the gable before him, Mr. Robertson passed a low window, through whichhe had a glimpse of the pretty, old-fashioned parlour within, as he wentround to the front, to knock at the nearer of two green-painted doors. 

Mrs. Blatherwick herself came to open it, and finding who it was thatknocked--of all men the most welcome to her in her present mood--receivedhim with the hearty simplicity of an evident welcome. 

For was he not a minister? and was not he who caused all her trouble, aminister also? She was not, indeed, going to lay open her heart and let himsee into its sorrow; for to confess her son a cause of the least anxiety toher, would be faithless and treacherous; but the unexpected appearance ofMr. Robertson brought her, nevertheless, as it were the dawn of a wintermorning after a long night of pain. 

She led him into the low-ceiled parlour, the green gloom of the bighydrangea that filled the front window, and the ancient scent of thewithered rose-leaves in the gorgeous china basin on the gold-borderedtable-cover. There the minister, after a few kind commonplaces, sat for amoment, silently pondering how to enter upon his communication. But he didnot ponder long, however; for his usual way was to rush headlong atwhatever seemed to harbour a lion, and come at once to the death-grapple. 

Marion Blatherwick was a good-looking woman, with a quiet strongexpression, and sweet gray eyes. The daughter of a country surgeon, she hadbeen left an orphan without means; but was so generally respected, thatall said Mr. Blatherwick had never done better than when he married her. Their living son seemed almost to have died in his infancy; their deaddaughter, gone beyond range of eye and ear, seemed never to have left them:there was no separation, only distance between them. 

"I have taken the liberty, Mrs. Blatherwick, of coming to ask your help ina great perplexity, " began Mr. Robertson, with an embarrassment she hadnever seen in him before, and which bewildered her not a little. 

"Weel, sir, it's an honour done me--a great honour, for which I hae tothank ye, I'm sure!" she answered. 

"Bide ye, mem, till ye hear what it is, " rejoined the minister. "We, thatis, my wife and mysel, hae a puir lass at hame i' the hoose. We hae ta'en agreat interest in her for some weeks past; but noo we're 'maist at oorwits' en' what to do wi' her neist. She's sair oot o' hert, and oot o'health, and out o' houp; and in fac' she stan's in sair, ay, desperateneed o' a cheenge. "

"Weel, that ouchtna to mak muckle o' a diffeeclety atween auld friens likeoorsels, Maister Robertson!--Ye wad hae us tak her in for a whilie, tillshe luiks up a bit, puir thing?--Hoo auld may she be?"

"She can hardly be mair nor twenty, or aboot that--sic like as your ainbonnie lassie would hae been by this time, gien she had ripent here i'steado' gaein awa to the gran' finishin schuil o' the just made perfec. Weelmin' I her bonny face! And, 'deed, this ane's no' that unlike yer ain Isy!She something favours her. "

"Eh, sir, fess her to me! My hert's waitin for her! Her mither maunna lowseher! She couldna stan' that!"

"She has nae mither, puir thing!--But ye maun dee naething in a hurry; Imaun tell ye aboot her first!"

"I'm content 'at she's a frien o' yours, sir. I ken weel ye wad never haeme tak intil my hoose are that was na fit--and a' the lads aboot the placefrae ae mornin til anither!"

"Indeed she _is_ a frien o' mine, mem; and I hae never a dreid o' onythinghappenin ye wadna like. She's in ower sair trouble to cause ony anxiety. The fac' is, she's had a terrible misfortun!"

The good woman started, drew herself up a little, and said hurriedly, "There's no a wean, is there?"

"'Deed is there, mem!--but pairt o' the meesery is, the bairn's disappeart;and she's brackin her heart aboot 'im. She's maist oot o' her min', mem! Nothat she's onything but perfecly reasonable, and gies never a grain o'trouble! I canna doobt she'd be a great help til ye, and that ilka minuteye saw fit to lat her bide. But she's jist huntit wi' the idea that she patthe bairnie doon, and left him, and kens na whaur. --Verily, mem, she's areo' the lambs o' the Lord's ain flock!"

"That's no the w'y the lambs o' _his_ flock are i' the w'y o' behavinthemsels!--I fear me, sir, ye're lattin yer heart rin awa wi' yerjeedgment!"

"I hae aye coontit Mary Magdalen are o' the Lord's ain yowies, that he leftthe lave i' the wilderness to luik for: this is sic anither! Gien ye helpHim to come upon her, ye'll cairry her hame 'atween ye rej'icin! And yemin' hoo he stude 'atween are far waur nor her, and the ill men that wouldfain hae shamet her, and sent them oot like sae mony tykes--thae gran'Pharisees--wi their tails tuckit in 'atween their legs!--Sair affrontitthey war, doobtless!--But I maun be gaein, mem, for we're no vera like toagree! My Maister's no o' ae min' wi' you, mem, aboot sic affairs--and saeI maun gang, and lea' ye to yer ain opingon! But I would jist remin' ye, mem, that she's at this present i' _my_ hoose, wi my wife; and my wee bitlassie hings aboot her as gien she was an angel come doon to see the bonnyplace this warl luks frae up there. --Eh, puir lammie, the stanes oucht tobe feower upo thae hill-sides!"

"What for that, Maister Robertson?"

"'Cause there's so mony o' them whaur human herts oucht to be. --Come awa, doggie!" he added, rising. 

"Dear me, sir! haena ye hae a grain o' patience to waur (_spend_) upon apuir menseless body?" cried Marion, wringing her hands in dismay. "To think_I_ sud be nice whaur my Lord was sae free!"

"Ay, " returned the minister, "and he was jist as clean as ever, wi' monyane siclike as her inside the heart o' him!--_Gang awa, and dinna dee thelike again_, was a' he said to that ane!--and ye may weel be sure she neverdid! And noo she and Mary are followin, wi' yer ain Isy, i' the verafutsteps o' the great shepherd, throuw the gowany leys o' the NewJerus'lem--whaur it may be they ca' her Isy yet, as they ca' this ane Ihae to gang hame til. "

"Ca' they her _that_, sir?--Eh, gar her come, gar her come! I wud fain cryupo _Isy_ ance mair!--Sit ye doon, sir, shame upo' me!--and tak a biteefter yer lang walk!--Will ye no bide the nicht wi' 's, and gang back bythe mornin's co'ch?"

"I wull that, mem--and thank ye kindly! I'm a bit fatiguit wi' thehill ro'd, and the walk a wee langer than I'm used til. --Ye maun hae peetyupo my kittle temper, mem, and no drive me to ower muckle shame o' myself!"he concluded, wiping his forehead. 

"And to think, " cried his hostess, "that my hard hert sud hae drawn sic aword frae ane o' the Lord's servans that serve him day and nicht! I beg yerpardon, and that richt heumbly, sir! I daurna say I'll never do the likeagain, but I'm no sae likly to transgress a second time as the first. --Lord, keep the doors o' my lips, that ill-faured words comena thouchtlessoot, and shame me and them that hear me!--I maun gang and see aboot yerdenner, sir! I s' no be lang. "

"Yer gracious words, mem, are mair nor meat and drink to me. I could, likeElijah, go i' the stren'th o' them--maybe something less than forty days, but it wad be by the same sort o' stren'th as that angels'-food gied theprophet!"

Marion hurried none the less for such a word; and soon the minister hadeaten his supper, and was seated in the cool of a sweet summer-evening, inthe garden before the house, among roses and lilies and poppy-heads andlong pink-striped grasses, enjoying a pipe with the farmer, who hadanticipated the hour for unyoking, and hurried home to have a talk with Mr. Robertson. The minister opened wide his heart, and told them all he knewand thought of Isy. And so prejudiced were they in her favour by what hesaid of her, and the arguments he brought to show that the judgment of theworld was in her case tyrannous and false, that what anxiety might yetremain as to the new relation into which they were about to enter, was soonabsorbed in hopeful expectation of her appearance. 

"But, " he concluded, "you will have to be wise as serpents, lest aiblins(_possibly_) ye kep (_intercept_) a lost sheep on her w'y back to theshepherd, and gar her lie theroot (_out of doors_), exposed to the prowlinwouf. Afore God, I wud rether share wi' her in _that_ day, nor wi' themthat keppit her!"

But when he reached home, the minister was startled, indeed dismayed by thepallor that overwhelmed Isy's countenance when she heard, following hisassurance of the welcome that awaited her, the name and abode of her newfriends. 

"They'll be wantin to ken a'thing!" she sobbed. 

"Tell you them, " returned the minister, "everything they have a right toknow; they are good people, and will not ask more. Beyond that, they willrespect your silence. "

"There's but ae thing, as ye ken, sir, that I canna, and winna tell. Tohaud my tongue aboot that is the ae particle o' honesty left possible tome! It's enough I should have been the cause of the poor man's sin; andI'm not going to bring upon him any of the consequences of it as well. Godkeep the doors of my lips!"

"We will not go into the question whether you or he was the more to blame, "returned the parson; "but I heartily approve of your resolve, and admireyour firmness in holding to it. The time _may_ come when you _ought_ totell; but until then, I shall not even allow myself to wonder who thefaithless man may be. "

Isy burst into tears. 

"Don't call him that, sir! Don't drive me to doubt him. Don't let thethought cross my mind that he could have helped doing nothing! Besides, Ideserve nothing! And for my bonny bairn, he maun by this time be back hameto Him that sent him!"

Thus assured that her secret would be respected by those to whom she wasgoing, she ceased to show further reluctance to accept the shelter offeredher. And, in truth, underneath the dread of encountering JamesBlatherwick's parents, lay hidden in her mind the fearful joy of a chanceof some day catching, herself unseen, a glimpse of the man whom she stillloved with the forgiving tenderness of a true, therefore strong heart. With a trembling, fluttering bosom she took her place on the coach besideMr. Robertson, to go with him to the refuge he had found for her. 

Once more in the open world, with which she had had so much intercoursethat was other than joyous, that same world began at once to work the willof its Maker upon her poor lacerated soul; and afar in its hidden deepsthe process of healing was already begun. Agony would many a time returnunbidden, would yet often rise like a crested wave, with menace ofoverwhelming despair, but the Real, the True, long hidden from her by thelying judgments of men and women, was now at length beginning to revealitself to her tear-blinded vision; Hope was lifting a feeble head above thetangled weeds of the subsiding deluge; and ere long the girl would see andunderstand how little cares the Father, whose judgment is the truth ofthings, what at any time his child may have been or, done, the moment thatchild gives herself up to be made what He would have her! Looking down intothe hearts of men, He sees differences there of which the self-importantworld takes no heed; many that count themselves of the first, He sees thelast--and what He sees, alone _is_: a gutter-child, a thief, a girl whonever in this world had even a notion of purity, may lie smiling in thearms of the Eternal, while the head of a lordly house that still flourisheslike a green bay-tree, may be wandering about with the dogs beyond thewalls of the city. 

Out in the open world, I say, the power of the present God began at once towork upon Isobel, for there, although dimly, she yet looked into His openface, sketched vaguely in the mighty something we call Nature--chiefly onthe great vault we call Heaven, the _Upheaved_. Shapely but undefined;perfect in form, yet limitless in depth; blue and persistent, yet everevading capture by human heart in human eye; this sphere of fashionedboundlessness, of definite shapelessness, called up in her heart theformless children of upheavedness--grandeur, namely, and awe; hope, namely, and desire: all rushed together toward the dawn of the unspeakable One, who, dwelling in that heaven, is above all heavens; mighty andunchangeable, yet childlike; inexorable, yet tender as never was mother;devoted as never yet was child save one. Isy, indeed, understood little ofall this; yet she wept, she knew not why; and it was not for sorrow. 

But when, the coach-journey over, she turned her back upon the house whereher child lay, and entered the desolate hill-country, a strange feelingbegan to invade her consciousness. It seemed at first but an old mood, wornshadowy; then it seemed the return of an old dream; then a painful, confused, half-forgotten memory; but at length it cleared and settled intoa conviction that she had been in the same region before, and had had, although a passing, yet a painful acquaintance with it; and at the lastshe concluded that she must be near the very spot where she had left andlost her baby. All that had, up to that moment, befallen her, seemed fusedin a troubled conglomerate of hunger and cold and weariness, of help andhurt, of deliverance and returning pain: they all mingled inextricably withthe scene around her, and there condensed into the memory of that oneevent--of which this must assuredly be the actual place! She looked uponwidespread wastes of heather and peat, great stones here and there, half-buried in it, half-sticking out of it: surely she was waiting therefor something to come to pass! surely behind this veil of the Seen, achild must be standing with outstretched arms, hungering after his mother!In herself that very moment must Memory be trembling into vision! AtLength her heart's desire must be drawing near to her expectant soul!

But suddenly, alas! her certainty of recollection, her assurance ofprophetic anticipation, faded from her, and of the recollection itselfremained nothing but a ruin! And all the time it took to dawn intobrilliance and fade out into darkness, had measured but a few weary stepsby the side of her companion, lost in the meditation of a glad sermon forthe next Sunday about the lost sheep carried home with jubilance, andforgetting how unfit was the poor sheep beside him for such a fatiguingtramp up hill and down, along what was nothing better than the stony bedof a winter-torrent. 

All at once Isy darted aside from the rough track, scrambled up the steepbank, and ran like one demented into a great clump of heather, which shebegan at once to search through and through. The minister stoppedbewildered, and stood to watch her, almost fearing for a moment that shehad again lost her wits. She got on the top of a stone in the middle of theclump, turned several times round, gazed in every direction over the moor, then descended with a hopeless look, and came slowly back to him, saying--

"I beg your pardon, sir; I thought I had a glimpse of my infant through theheather! This must be the very spot where I left him!"

The next moment she faltered feebly--

"Hae we far to gang yet, sir?" and before he could make her any answer, staggered to the bank on the roadside, fell upon it, and lay still. 

The minister immediately felt that he had been cruel in expecting her towalk so far; he made haste to lay her comfortably on the short grass, andwaited anxiously, doing what he could to bring her to herself. He could seeno water near, but at least she had plenty of air!

In a little while she began to recover, sat up, and would have risen toresume her journey. But the minister, filled with compunction, took her upin his arms. They were near the crown of the ascent, and he could carry heras far as that! She expostulated, but was unable to resist. Light as shewas, however, he found it no easy task to bear her up the last of the steeprise, and was glad to set her down at the top--where a fresh breeze waswaiting to revive them both. She thanked him like a child whose father hadcome to her help; and they seated themselves together on the highest pointof the moor, with a large, desolate land on every side of them. 

"Oh, sir, but ye _are_ good to me!" she murmured. "That brae just minded meo' the Hill of Difficulty in the Pilgrim's Progress!"

"Oh, you know that story?" said the minister. 

"My old grannie used to make me read it to her when she lay dying. Ithought it long and tiresome then, but since you took me to your house, sir, I have remembered many things in it; I knew then that I was come tothe house of the Interpreter. You've made me understand, sir!"

"I am glad of that, Isy! You see I know some things that make me very glad, and so I want them to make you glad too. And the thing that makes megladdest of all, is just that God is what he is. To know that such a One isGod over us and in us, makes of very being a most precious delight. Hischildren, those of them that know him, are all glad just because he _is_, and they are his children. Do you think a strong man like me would readsermons and say prayers and talk to people, doing nothing but suchshamefully easy work, if he did not believe what he said?"

"I'm sure, sir, you have had hard enough work with me! I am a bad one toteach! I thought I knew all that you have had such trouble to make me see!I was in a bog of ignorance and misery, but now I am getting my head up outof it, and seeing about me!--Please let me ask you one thing, sir: how isit that, when the thought of God comes to me, I draw back, afraid of him?If he be the kind of person you say he is, why can't I go close up tohim?"

"I confess the same foolishness, my child, _at times_, " answered theminister. "It can only be because we do not yet see God as he is--and thatmust be because we do not yet really understand Jesus--do not see the gloryof God in his face. God is just like Jesus--exactly like him!"

And the parson fell a wondering how it could be that so many, gentle andguileless as this woman-child, recoiled from the thought of the perfectOne. Why were they not always and irresistibly drawn toward the very ideaof God? Why, at least, should they not run to see and make sure whetherGod was indeed such a one or not? whether he was really Love itself--oronly loved them after a fashion? It set him thinking afresh about manythings; and he soon began to discover that he had in fact been teaching agood many things without _knowing_ them; for how could he _know_ thingsthat were not true, and therefore _could not_ be known? He had indeed been_saying_ that God was Love, but he had yet been teaching many things abouthim that were not lovable!

They sat thinking and talking, with silences between; and while theythought and talked, the day-star was all the time rising unnoted in theirhearts. At length, finding herself much stronger, Isy rose, and theyresumed their journey. 

The door stood open to receive them; but ere they reached it, a bright-looking little woman, with delicate lines of ingrained red in a sorrowfulface, appeared in it, looking out with questioning eyes--like a mother-birdjust loosening her feet from the threshold of her nest to fly and meetthem. Through the film that blinded those expectant eyes, Marion saw whatmanner of woman she was that drew nigh, and her motherhood went out toher. For, in the love-witchery of Isy's yearning look, humbly seekingacceptance, and in her hesitating approach half-checked by gentle apology, Marion imagined she saw her own Isy coming back from the gates of Death, and sprang to meet her. The mediating love of the minister, obliteratingitself, had made him linger a step or two behind, waiting what wouldfollow: when he saw the two folded each in the other's arms, and thefountain of love thus break forth at once from their encountering hearts, his soul leaped for joy of the new-created love--new, but not the lesssurely eternal; for God is Love, and Love is that which is, and was, andshall be for evermore--boundless, unconditioned, self-existent, creative!"Truly, " he said in himself, "God is Love, and God is all and in all! Heis no abstraction; he is the one eternal Individual God! In him Loveevermore breaks forth anew into fresh personality--in every newconsciousness, in every new child of the one creating Father. In everyburning heart, in everything that hopes and fears and is, Love is thecreative presence, the centre, the source of life, yea Life itself; yea, God himself!"

The elder woman drew herself a little back, held the poor white-faced thingat arms'-length, and looked her through the face into the heart. 

"My bonny lamb!" she cried, and pressed her again to her bosom. "Come hame, and be a guid bairn, and ill man sall never touch ye, or gar ye greit onymair! There's _my_ man waitin for ye, to tak ye, and haud ye safe!"

Isy looked up, and over the shoulder of her hostess saw the strong paternalface of the farmer, full of silent welcome. For the strange emotion thatfilled him he did not seek to account: he had nothing to do with that; hiswill was lord over it!

"Come ben the hoose, lassie, " he said, and led the way to the parlour, where the red sunset was shining through the low gable window, filling theplace with the glamour of departing glory. "Sit ye doon upo the sofa there;ye maun be unco tired! Surely ye haena come a' the lang ro'd frae Tiltowieupo yer ain twa wee feet?"

"'Deed has she, " answered the minister, who had followed them into theroom; "the mair shame to me 'at loot her dee 't!"

Marion lingered outside, wiping away the tears that would keep flowing. Forthe one question, "What can be amiss wi' Jamie?" had returned upon her, haunting and harrying her heart; and with it had come the idea, thoughvague and formless, that their goodwill to the wandering outcast mightperhaps do something to make up for whatever ill thing Jamie might havedone. At last, instead of entering the parlour after them, she turned awayto the kitchen, and made haste to get ready their supper. 

Isy sank back in the wide sofa, lost in relief; and the minister, when hesaw her look of conscious refuge and repose, said to himself--

"She is feeling as we shall all feel when first we know nothing near us butthe Love itself that was before all worlds!--when there is no doubt more, and no questioning more!"

But the heart of the farmer was full of the old uncontent, the old longingafter the heart of his boy, that had never learned to cry "_Father!_"

But soon they sat down to their meal. While they ate, hardly any one spoke, and no one missed the speech or was aware of the silence, until thebereaved Isobel thought of her child, and burst into tears. Then the motherwho sorrowed with such a different, and so much bitterer sorrow, diviningher thought and whence it came, rose, and from behind her said--

"Noo ye maun jist come awa wi' me, and I s' pit ye til yer bed, and lea' yethere!--Na, na; say gude nicht to naebody!--Ye'll see the minister again i'the mornin!"

With that she took Isy away, half-carrying her close-pressed, andhalf-leading her; for Marion, although no bigger than Isy, was muchstronger, and could easily have carried her. 

That night both mothers slept well, and both dreamed of their mothers andof their children. But in the morning nothing remained of their two dreamsexcept two hopes in the one Father. 

When Isy entered the little parlour, she found she had slept so long thatbreakfast was over, the minister smoking his pipe in the garden, and thefarmer busy in his yard. But Marion heard her, and brought her breakfast, beaming with ministration; then thinking she would eat it better if left toherself, went back to her work. In about five minutes, however, Isy joinedher, and began at once to lend a helping hand. 

"Hoot, hoot, my dear!" cried her hostess, "ye haena taen time eneuch tomake a proaper brakfast o' 't! Gang awa back, and put mair intil ye. Gienye dinna learn to ate, we s' never get ony guid o' ye!"

"I just can't eat for gladness, " returned Isy. "Ye're that good to me, thatI dare hardly think aboot it; it'll gar me greit!--Lat me help ye, mem, andI'll grow hungry by dennertime!"

Mrs. Blatherwick understood, and said no more. She showed her what shemight set about; and Isy, happy as a child, came and went at her commands, rejoicing. Probably, had she started in life with less devotion, she mighthave fared better; but the end was not yet, and the end must be knownbefore we dare judge: result explains history. It is enough for the presentto say that, with the comparative repose of mind she now enjoyed, with thegood food she had, and the wholesome exercise, for Mrs. Blatherwick tookcare she should not work too hard, with the steady kindness shown her, andthe consequent growth of her faith and hope, Isy's light-heartedness first, and then her good looks began to return; so that soon the dainty littlecreature was both prettier and lovelier than before. At the same time herface and figure, her ways and motions, went on mingling themselves soinextricably with Marion's impressions of her vanished Isy, that at lengthshe felt as if she never could be able to part with her. Nor was it longbefore she assured herself that she was equal to anything that had to bedone in the house; and that the experience of a day or two would make hercapable of the work of the dairy as well. Thus Isy and her mistress, forso Isy insisted on regarding and calling her, speedily settled into theirnew relation. 

It did sometimes cross the girl's mind, and that with a sting of doubt, whether it was fair to hide from her new friends the full facts of hersorrowful history; but to quiet her conscience she had only to reflect thatfor the sake of the son they loved, she must keep jealous guard over hersilence. Further than James's protection, she had no design, cherished noscheme. The idea of compelling, or even influencing him to do her justice, never once crossed her horizon. On the contrary, she was possessed by thenotion that she had done him a great wrong, and shrank in horror from thedanger of rendering it irretrievable. She had never thought the thing outas between her and him, never even said to herself that he too had been toblame. Her exaggerated notion of the share she had in the fault, had lodgedand got fixed in her mind, partly from her acquaintance with the popularjudgment concerning such as she, and partly from her humble readiness totake any blame to herself. Even had she been capable of comparing therelative consequences, the injury she had done his prospects as a minister, would have seemed to her revering soul a far greater wrong than anysuffering or loss he had brought upon her. For what was she beside him?What was the ruin of her life to the frustration of such prospects as his?The sole alleviation of her misery was that she seemed hitherto to haveescaped involving him in the results of her lack of self-restraint, whichresults, she was certain, remained concealed from him, as from every one inany way concerned with him in them. In truth, never was man less worthy ofit, or more devotedly shielded! And never was hidden wrong to the womanturned more eagerly and persistently into loving service to the man'sparents! Many and many a time did the heart of James's mother, as shewatched Isy's deft and dainty motions, regret, even with bitterness, thatsuch a capable and love-inspiring girl should have rendered herselfunworthy of her son--for, notwithstanding what she regarded as thedisparity of their positions, she would gladly have welcomed Isy as adaughter, had she but been spotless, and fit to be loved by him. 

In the evenings, when the work of the day was done, Isy used to rambleabout the moor, in the lingering rays of the last of the sunset, and thenow quickly shortening twilight. In those hours unhasting, gentle, and sospiritual in their tone that they seem to come straight from the eternalspaces where is no recalling and no forgetting, where time and space aremotionless, and the spirit is at rest, Isy first began to read withconscious understanding. For now first she fell into the company of books--old-fashioned ones no doubt, but perhaps even therefore the more fit forher, who was an old-fashioned, gentle, ignorant, thoughtful child. Amongthe rest in the farmhouse, she came upon the two volumes of a book calledThe Preceptor, which contained various treatises laying down "the firstprinciples of Polite Learning:" these drew her eager attention; and withone or other of the not very handy volumes in her hand, she would steal outof sight of the farm, and lapt in the solitude of the moor, would sit andread until at last the light could reveal not a word more. Even theGeometry she found in them attracted her not a little; the Rhetoric andPoetry drew her yet more; but most of all, the Natural History, with itsengravings of beasts and birds, poor as they were, delighted her; and fromthese antiquated repertories she gathered much, and chiefly that mostvaluable knowledge, some acquaintance with her own ignorance. There also, in a garret over the kitchen, she found an English translation ofKlopstock's Messiah, a poem which, in the middle of the last and in thepresent century, caused a great excitement in Germany, and did not alittle, I believe, for the development of religious feeling in thatcountry, where the slow-subsiding ripple of its commotion is possibly notaltogether unfelt even at the present day. She read the volume through asshe strolled in those twilights, not without risking many a fall over bushand stone ere practice taught her to see at once both the way for her feetover the moor, and that for her eyes over the printed page. The book bothpleased and suited her, the parts that interested her most being thoseabout the repentant angel, Abaddon; who, if I remember aright, haunted thesteps of the Saviour, and hovered about the cross while he was crucified. The great question with her for a long time was, whether the Saviour mustnot have forgiven him; but by slow degrees it became at last clear to her, that he who came but to seek and to save the lost, could not have closedthe door against one that sought return to his fealty. It was not untilshe knew the soutar, however, that at length she understood the tirelessredeeming of the Father, who had sent men blind and stupid and ill-conditioned, into a world where they had to learn almost everything. 

There were some few books of a more theological sort, which happily sheneither could understand nor was able to imagine she understood, and whichtherefore she instinctively refused, as affording nourishment neither forthought nor feeling. There was, besides, Dr. Johnson's _Rasselas_, whichmildly interested her; and a book called _Dialogues of Devils_, which sheread with avidity. And thus, if indeed her ignorance did not become rapidlyless, at least her knowledge of its existence became slowly greater. 

And all the time the conviction grew upon her, that she had been in thatregion before, and that in truth she could not be far from the spot whereshe laid her child down, and lost him. 

CHAPTER XVIII

In the meantime the said child, a splendid boy, was the delight of thehumble dwelling to which Maggie had borne him in triumph. But the mind ofthe soutar was not a little exercised as to how far their right in the boyapproached the paternal: were they justified in regarding him as theirlove-property, before having made exhaustive inquiry as to who could claim, and might re-appropriate him? For nothing could liberate the finder ofsuch a thing from the duty of restoring it upon demand, seeing there couldbe no assurance that the child had been deliberately and finallyabandoned! Maggie, indeed, regarded the baby as absolutely hers by right ofrescue; but her father asked himself whether by appropriating him shemight not be depriving his mother of the one remaining link between herand humanity, and so abandoning her helpless to the Enemy. Surely to takeand withhold from any woman her child, must be to do what was possibletoward dividing her from the unseen and eternal! And he saw that, for thesake of his own child also, and the truth in her, both she and he must makeevery possible endeavour to restore the child to his mother. 

So the next time that Maggie brought the crowing infant to the kitchen, herfather, who sat as usual under the small window, to gather upon his workall the light to be had, said, with one quick glance at the child--

"Eh, the bonny, glaid cratur! Wha can say 'at sic as he, 'at haena the twain ane to see til them, getna frae Himsel a mair partic'lar and carefu'regaird, gien that war poassible, than ither bairns! I would fain believethat same!"

"Eh, father, but ye aye think bonny!" exclaimed Maggie. "Some hae beendingin 't in upo me 'at sic as he maist aye turn oot onything but weel, whan they step oot intil the warl. Eh, but we maun tak care o' 'im, father!Whaur _would_ I be wi'oot you at my back!"

"And God at the back o' baith, bairn!" rejoined the soutar. "It's thinkablethat the Almichty may hae special diffeeculty wi sic as he, but nane canjeedge o' ony thing or body till they see the hin'er en' o' 't a'. But I'mthinkin it maun aye be harder for ane that hasna his ain mither to luiktil. Ony ither body, be she as guid as she may, maun be but a makshift!--For ae thing he winna get the same naitral disciplene 'at ilka mither catgies its kitlins!"

"Maybe! maybe!--I ken I couldna ever lay a finger upo' the bonny craturmysel!" said Maggie. 

"There 'tis!" returned her father. "And I dinna think, " he went on, "wecould expec muckle frae the wisdom o' the mither o' 'm, gien she had him. Idoobt she micht turn oot to be but a makshift hersel! There's mony aboot'im 'at'll be sair eneuch upon 'im, but nane the wiser for that! Monyane'll luik upon 'im as a bairn in whause existence God has had nae share--or jist as muckle share as gies him a grup o' 'im to gie 'im his licks!There's a heap o' mystery aboot a'thing, Maggie, and that frae the verabeginnin to the vera en'! It may be 'at yon bairnie's i' the waur dangerjist frae haein you and me, Maggie! Eh, but I wuss his ain mither war gienback til him! And wha can tell but she's needin him waur nor he's needinher--though there maun aye be something he canna get--'cause ye're no hisain mither, Maggie, and I'm no even his ain gutcher!"

The adoptive mother burst into a howl. 

"Father, father, ye'll brak the hert o' me!" she almost yelled, and laidthe child on the top of her father's hands in the very act of drawing hiswaxed ends. 

Thus changing him perforce from cobbler to nurse, she bolted from thekitchen, and up the little stair; and throwing herself on her knees by thebedside, sought, instinctively and unconsciously, the presence of him whosees in secret. But for a time she had nothing to say even to _him_, andcould only moan on in the darkness beneath her closed eyelids. 

Suddenly she came to herself, remembering that she too had abandoned herchild: she must go back to him!

But as she ran, she heard loud noises of infantile jubilation, andre-entering the kitchen, was amazed to see the soutar's hands moving aspersistently if not quite so rapidly as before: the child hung at the backof the soutar's head, in the bight of the long jack-towel from behind thedoor, holding on by the gray hair of his occiput. There he tugged andcrowed, while his care-taker bent over his labour, circumspect in everymovement, nor once forgetting the precious thing on his back, who wasevidently delighted with his new style of being nursed, and only now andthen made a wry face at some movement of the human machine too abrupt forhis comfort. Evidently he took it all as intended solely for his pleasure. 

Maggie burst out laughing through the tears that yet filled her eyes, andthe child, who could hear but not see her, began to cry a little, sorousing the mother in her to a sense that he was being treated toounceremoniously; when she bounded to liberate him, undid the towel, andseated herself with him in her lap. The grandfather, not sorry to bereleased, gave his shoulders a little writhing shake, laughed an amusedlaugh, and set off boring and stitching and drawing at redoubled speed. 

"Weel, Maggie?" he said, with loving interrogation, but without looking up. 

"I saw ye was richt, father, and it set me greitin sae sair that I forgotthe bairn, and you, father, as weel. Gang on, please, and say what ye thinkfit: it's a' true!"

"There's little left for me to say, lassie, noo ye hae begun to say't toyersel. But, believe me, though ye can never be the bairn's ain mither, _she_ can never be til 'im the same ye hae been a'ready, whatever mair orbetter may follow. The pairt ye hae chosen is guid eneuch never to be taenfrae ye--i' this warl or the neist!"

"Thank ye, father, for that! I'll dee for him what I can, ohn forgottenthat he's no mine but anither wuman's. I maunna tak frae her what's herain!"

The soutar, especially while at his work, was always trying "to get, " as hesaid, "into his Lord's company, "--now endeavouring, perhaps, to understandsome saying of his, or now, it might be, to discover his reason for sayingit just then and there. Often, also, he would be pondering why he allowedthis or that to take place in the world, for it was his house, where he wasalways present and always at work. Humble as diligent disciple, he neverdoubted, when once a thing had taken place, that it was by his will it cameto pass, but he saw that evil itself, originating with man or his deceiver, was often made to subserve the final will of the All-in-All. And he knewin his own self that much must first be set right there, before the will ofthe Father could be done in earth as it was in heaven. Therefore in any newdevelopment of feeling in his child, he could recognize the pressure of aguiding hand in the formation of her history; and was able to understandSt. John where he says, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it dothnot yet appear what we shall be, but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. " For first, foremost, and deepest of all, he positively and absolutely believed in the man whosehistory he found in the Gospel: that is, he believed not only that such aman once was, and that every word he then spoke was true, but he believedthat that man was still in the world, and that every word he then spoke, had always been, still was, and always would be true. Therefore he alsobelieved--which was more both to the Master and to John MacLear, hisdisciple--that the chief end of his conscious life must be to live in Hispresence, and keep his affections ever, afresh and constantly, turningtoward him in hope and aspiration. Hence every day he felt afresh that hetoo was living in the house of God, among the things of the father ofJesus. 

The life-influence of the soutar had already for some time, and in somemeasure, been felt at Tiltowie. In a certain far-off way, men seemed tosurmise what he was about, although they were, one and all, unable toestimate the nature or value of his pursuit. What their idea of him was, may in a measure be gathered from the answer of the village-fool to thepasser-by who said to him: "Weel, and what's yer soutar aboot the noo?""Ow, as usual, " answered the _natural_, "turnin up ilka muckle stane toluik for his maister aneth it!" For in truth he believed that the Lord ofmen was very often walking to and fro in the earthly kingdom of his Father, watching what was there going on, and doing his best to bring it to itstrue condition; that he was ever and always in the deepest sense presentin the same, where he could, if he pleased, at any moment or in any spot, appear to whom he would. Never did John MacLear lift his eyes heavenwardwithout a vague feeling that he might that very moment, catch a sight ofthe glory of his coming Lord; if ever he fixed his eyes on the far horizon, it was never without receiving a shadowy suggestion that, like a sailtowering over the edge of the world, the first great flag of the Lord'shitherward march might that moment be rising between earth and heaven;--forcertainly He would come unawares, and then who could tell what moment bemight not set his foot on the edge of the visible, and come out of thedark in which he had hitherto clothed himself as with a garment--to appearin the ancient glory of his transfiguration! Thus he was ever ready to falla watching--and thus, also, never did he play the false prophet, with criesof "Lo here!" and "Lo there!" And even when deepest lost in watching, thelowest whisper of humanity seemed always loud enough to recall him to his"work alive"--lest he should be found asleep at His coming. His was thesame live readiness that had opened the ear of Maggie to the cry of thelittle one on the hill-side. As his daily work was ministration to theweary feet of his Master's men, so was his soul ever awake to their sorrowsand spiritual necessities. 

"There's a haill warl' o' bonny wark aboot me!" he would say. "I hae but tolay my han' to what's neist me, and it's sure to be something that wantsdeein! I'm clean ashamt sometimes, whan I wauk up i' the mornin, to fin'mysel deein naething!"

Every evening while the summer lasted, he would go out alone for a walk, generally toward a certain wood nigh the town; for there lay, although itwas of no great extent, and its trees were small, a probability of escapingfor a few moments from the eyes of men, and the chance of certain ofanother breed showing themselves. 

"No that, " he once said to Maggie, "I ever cared vera muckle aboot theangels: it's the man, the perfec man, wha was there wi' the Father aforeever an angel was h'ard tell o', that sen's me upo my knees! Whan I see aman that but minds me o' _Him_, my hert rises wi' a loup, as gien it wad'maist lea' my body ahint it. --Love's the law o' the universe, and it jistworks amazin!"

One day a man, seeing him approach in the near distance, and knowing he hadnot perceived his presence, lay down behind a great stone to watch "the madsoutar, " in the hope of hearing him say something insane. As John camenearer, the man saw his lips moving, and heard sounds issue from them; butas he passed, nothing was audible but the same words repeated severaltimes, and with the same expression of surprise and joy as if at somethingfor the first time discovered:--"Eh, Lord! Eh, Lord, I see! Iun'erstaun'!--Lord, I'm yer ain--to the vera deith!--a' yer ain!--Thyfather bless thee, Lord!--I ken ye care for noucht else!--Eh, but myhert's glaid!--that glaid, I 'maist canna speyk!"

That man ever after spoke of the soutar with a respect that resembled awe. 

After that talk with her father about the child and his mother, a certainsilent change appeared in Maggie. People saw in her face an expressionwhich they took to resemble that of one whose child was ill, and wasexpected to die. But what Maggie felt was only resignation to the will ofher Lord: the child was not hers but the Lord's, lent to her for a season!She must walk softly, doing everything for him as under the eye of theMaster, who might at any moment call to her, "Bring the child: I want himnow!" And she soon became as cheerful as before, but never after quite lostthe still, solemn look as of one in the eternal spaces, who saw beyond thisworld's horizon. She talked less with her father than hitherto, but at thesame time seemed to live closer to him. Occasionally she would ask him tohelp her to understand something he had said; but even then he would notalways try to make it plain; he might answer--

"I see, lassie, ye're no just ready for 't! It's true, though; and the daymaun come whan ye'll see the thing itsel, and ken what it is; and that'sthe only w'y to win at the trowth o' 't! In fac', to see a thing, and kenthe thing, and be sure it's true, is a' ane and the same thing!" Such aword from her father was always enough to still and content the girl. 

Her delight in the child, instead of growing less, went on increasingbecause of the _awe_, rather than _dread_ of having at last to give him up. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Meanwhile the minister remained moody, apparently sunk in contemplation, but in fact mostly brooding, and meditating neither form nor truth. Sometimes he felt indeed as if he were losing altogether his power ofthinking--especially when, in the middle of the week, he sat down to findsomething to say on the Sunday. He had greatly lost interest in thequestions that had occupied him while he was yet a student, and imaginedhimself in preparation for what he called the ministry--never thinking howone was to minister who had not yet learned to obey, and had never soughtanything but his own glorification! It was little wonder he should loseinterest in a profession, where all was but profession! What pleasurecould that man find in holy labour who, not indeed offered his stipend topurchase the Holy Ghost, but offered all he knew of the Holy Ghost topurchase popularity? No wonder he should find himself at length in lack oftalk to pay for his one thing needful! He had always been more or lessdependent on commentaries for the joint he provided--and even for thecooking of it: was it any wonder that his guests should show less and lessappetite for his dinners?

 The hungry sheep looked up and were not fed!

To have food to give them, he must think! To think, he must have peace! tohave peace, he must forget himself! to forget himself, he must repent, andwalk in the truth! to walk in the truth, he must love God and hisneighbour!--Even to have interest in the dry bone of criticism, which wasall he could find in his larder, he must broil it--and so burn away in theslow fire of his intellect, now dull and damp enough from lack of noblepurpose, every scrap of meat left upon it! His last relation to his work, his fondly cherished intellect, was departing from him, to leave him lordof a dustheap! In the unsavoury mound he grubbed and nosed and scrapeddog-like, but could not uncover a single fragment that smelt of provender. The morning of Saturday came, and he recognized with a burst of agonizingsweat, that he dared not even imagine his appearance before hiscongregation: he had not one written word to read to them; and extemporeutterance was, from conscious vacancy, impossible to him; he could noteven call up one meaningless phrase to articulate! He flung hisconcordance sprawling upon the floor, snatched up his hat and clericalcane, and, scarce knowing what he did, presently found himself standing atthe soutar's door, where he had already knocked, without a notion of whathe was come to seek. The old parson, generally in a mood to quarrel withthe soutar, had always walked straight into his workshop, and greeted himcrouched over his work; but the new parson always waited on the doorstepfor Maggie to admit him. 

She had opened the door wide ere he knew why he had come, or could think ofanything to say. And now he was in greater uneasiness than usual at thethought of the cobbler's deep-set black eyes about to be fixed upon him, asif to probe his very thoughts. 

"Do you think your father would have time, " he asked humbly, "to measure mefor a pair of light boots?"

Mr. Blatherwick was very particular about his foot-gear, and had hithertoalways fitted himself at Deemouth; but he had at length learned thatnothing he could there buy approached in quality, either of material orworkmanship, what the soutar supplied to his poorest customer: he wouldmend anything worth mending, but would never _make_ anything inferior. 

"Ye'll get what ye want at such and such place, " he would answer, "and Idoobtna it'll be as guid as can be made at the siller; but for my ainpairt, ye maun excuse me!"

"'Deed, sir, he'll be baith glad and prood to mak ye as guid a pair o'beets as he can compass, " answered Maggie. "Jist step in here, sir, and lathim ken what ye want. My bairn's greitin, and I maun gang til 'im; it'sseldom he cries oot!"

The minister walked in at the open door of the kitchen, and met the eyes ofthe soutar expectant. 

"Ye're welcome, sir!" said MacLear, and returned his eyes to what he hadfor a moment interrupted. 

"I want you to make me a nice pair of boots, if you please, " said theparson, as cheerily as he could. "I am rather particular about the fit, Ifear!"

"And what for no, sir?" answered the soutar. "I'll do what I can onygait, Ipromise ye--but wi' mair readiness nor confidence as to the fit; for Icanna profess assurance o' fittin' the first time, no haein the necessarinstinc' frae the mak' o' the man to the shape o' the fut, sir. "

"Of course I should like to have them both neat and comfortable, " said theparson. 

"In coorse ye wad, sir, and sae would I! For I confess I wad fain hae mycustomers tak note o' my success in followin the paittern set afore me i'the first oreeginal fut!"

"But you will allow, I suppose, that a foot is seldom as perfect now aswhen the divine idea of the member was first embodied by its maker?"rejoined the minister. 

"Ow, ay; there's been mony an interferin circumstance; but whan Hiskingdom's come, things 'll tak a turn for the redemption o' the feet asweel as the lave o' the body--as the apostle Paul says i' the twenty-thirdverse o' the aucht chapter o' his epistle to the Romans;--only I'm weelaveesed, sir, 'at there's no sic a thing as _adoption_ mintit at i' theoriginal Greek. That can hae no pairt i' what fowk ca's the plan o'salvation--as gien the consumin fire o' the Love eternal was to be ca'd a_plan_! Hech, minister, it scunners me! But for the fut, it's aye perfec'eneuch to be _my_ pattern, for it's the only ane I hae to follow! It'sHimsel sets the shape o' the shune this or that man maun weir!"

"That's very true--and the same applies to everything a man cannot help. Aman has both the make of his mind and of his circumstances to do the besthe can with, and sometimes they don't seem to fit each other--so well as, Ihope, your boots will fit my feet. "

"Ye're richt there, sir--only that no man's bun' to follow his inclinationsor his circumstances, ony mair than he's bun' to alter his fut to the shapeo' a ready-made beet!--But hoo wull ye hae them made, sir?--I mean whatsort o' butes wad ye hae me mak?"

"Oh, I leave that to you, Mr. MacLear!--a sort of half Wellington, Isuppose--a neat pair of short boots. "

"I understand, sir. "

"And now tell me, " said the minister, moved by a sudden impulse, coming heknew not whence, "what you think of this new fad, if it be nothing worse, of the English clergy--I mean about the duty of confessing to the priest. --I see they have actually prevailed upon that wretched creature we've allbeen reading about in the papers lately, to confess the murder of herlittle brother! Do you think they had any right to do that? Remember thejury had acquitted her. "

"And has she railly confessed? I _am_ glaid o' that! I only wuss they couldget a haud o' Madeline Smith as weel, and persuaud _her_ to confess! Eh, the state o' that puir crater's conscience! It 'maist gars me greit tothink o' 't! Gien she wad but confess, houp wad spring to life in hersin-oppressed soul! Eh, but it maun be a gran' lichtenin to that puirthing! I'm richt glaid to hear o' 't. "

"I didn't know, Mr. MacLear, that you favoured the power and influence ofthe priesthood to such an extent! We Presbyterian clergy are not in the wayof doing the business of detectives, taking upon us to act as the agents ofhuman justice! There is no one, guilty or not, but is safe with us!"

"As with any confessor, Papist or Protestant, " rejoined the soutar. "If Iunderstand your news, sir, it means that they persuaded the poor soul toconfess her guilt, and so put herself safe in the hands of God!"

"And is not that to come between God and the sinner?"

"Doubtless, sir--in order to bring them together; to persuade the sinner tothe first step toward reconciliation with God, and peace in his own mind. "

"That he could take without the intervention of the priest!"

"Yes, but not without his own consenting will! And in this case, she wouldnot, and did not confess without being persuaded to it!"

"They had no right to threaten her!"

"Did they threaten her? If they did, they were wrong. --And yet I don'tknow! In any case they did for her the very best thing that could be done!For they did get her, you tell me, to confess--and so cast from her thehorror of carrying about in her secret heart the knowledge of an unforgivencrime! Christians of all denominations hold, I presume, that, to beforgiven, a sin must be confessed!"

"Yes, to God--that is enough! No mere man has a right to know the sins ofhis neighbour!"

"Not even the man against whom the sin was committed?"

"Suppose the sin has never come abroad, but remains hidden in the heart, isa man bound to confess it? Is he, for instance, bound to tell his neighbourthat he used to hate him, and in his heart wish him evil?"

"The time micht come whan to confess even that would ease a man's hert! butin sic a case, the man's first duty, it seems to me, would be to watch foran opportunity o' doin that neebour a kin'ness. That would be the deid blowto his hatred! But where a man has done an act o' injustice, a wrang to hisneebour, he has no ch'ice, it seems to me, but confess it: that neebour isthe one from whom first he has to ask and receive forgiveness; and thatneebour alone can lift the burden o' 't aff o' him! Besides, the confessionmay be but fair, to baud the blame frae bein laid at the door o' someinnocent man!--And the author o' nae offence can affoord to forget, " endedthe soutar, "hoo the Lord said, 'There's naething happit-up, but maun cometo the licht'!"

It seems to me that nothing could have led the minister so near thepresentation of his own false position, except the will of God working inhim to set him free. He continued, driven by an impulse he neitherunderstood nor suspected--

"Suppose the thing not known, however, or likely to be known, and that theman's confession, instead of serving any good end, would only destroy hisreputation and usefulness, bring bitter grief upon those who loved him, andnothing but shame to the one he had wronged--what would you say then?--Youwill please to remember, Mr. MacLear, that I am putting an entirelyimaginary case, for the sake of argument only!"

"Eh, but I doobt--I doobt yer imaiginary case!" murmured the soutar tohimself, hardly daring even to think his thought clearly, lest somehow itmight reveal itself. 

"In that case, " he replied, "it seems to me the offender wad hae to castaboot him for ane fit to be trustit, and to him reveal the haill affair, that he may get his help to see and do what's richt: it maks an unco differto luik at a thing throuw anither man's een, i' the supposed licht o'anither man's conscience! The wrang dune may hae caused mair evil, that is, mair injustice, nor the man himsel kens! And what's the reputation ye speako', or what's the eesefu'ness o' sic a man? Can it be worth onything? Isnahis hoose a lee? isna it biggit upo the san'? What kin' o' a usefulnesscan that be that has hypocrisy for its fundation? Awa wi' 't! Lat him cryoot to a' the warl', 'I'm a heepocrit! I'm a worm, and no man!' Lat himcry oot to his makker, 'I'm a beast afore thee! Mak a man o' me'!"

As the soutar spoke, overcome by sympathy with the sinner, whom he couldnot help feeling in bodily presence before him, the minister, who had risenwhen he began to talk about the English clergy and confession, stoodhearing with a face pale as death. 

"For God's sake, minister, " continued the soutar, "gien ye hae ony sicthing upo yer min', hurry and oot wi' 't! I dinna say _to me_, but tosomebody--to onybody! Mak a clean breist o' 't, afore the Adversary has yeagain by the thrapple!"

But here started awake in the minister the pride of superiority in stationand learning: a shoemaker, from whom he had just ordered a pair of boots, to take such a liberty, who ought naturally to have regarded him asnecessarily spotless! He drew himself up to his lanky height, and madereply--

"I am not aware, Mr. MacLear, that I have given you any pretext foraddressing me in such terms! I told you, indeed, that I was putting a case, a very possible one, it is true, but not the less a merely imaginary one!You have shown me how unsafe it is to enter into an argument on anysupposed case with one of limited education! It is my own fault, however;and I beg your pardon for having thoughtlessly led you into such apitfall!--Good morning!"

As the door closed behind the parson, he began to felicitate himself onhaving so happily turned aside the course of a conversation whose dangerousdrift he seemed now first to recognize; but he little thought how much hehad already conveyed to the wide-eyed observation of one well schooled inthe symptoms of human unrest. 

"I must set a better watch over my thoughts lest they betray me!" hereflected; thus resolving to conceal himself yet more carefully from theone man in the place who would have cut for him the snare of the fowler. 

"I was ower hasty wi' 'im!" concluded the soutar on his part. "But I thinkthe truth has some grup o' 'im. His conscience is waukin up, I fancy, andgrowlin a bit; and whaur that tyke has ance taen haud, he's no ready tolowsen or lat gang! We maun jist lie quaiet a bit, and see! His hoor 'illcome!"

The minister being one who turned pale when angry, walked home with a faceof such corpse-like whiteness, that a woman who met him said to herself, "What can ail the minister, bonny laad! He's luikin as scared as a corp! Idoobt that fule body the soutar's been angerin him wi' his havers!"

The first thing he did when he reached the manse, was to turn, nevertheless, to the chapter and verse in the epistle to the Romans, whichthe soutar had indicated, and which, through all his irritation, had, strangely enough, remained unsmudged in his memory; but the passagesuggested nothing, alas! out of which he could fabricate a sermon. Could ithave proved otherwise with a heart that was quite content to have God nonearer him than a merely adoptive father? He found at the same time thathis late interview with the soutar had rendered the machinery of histhought-factory no fitter than before for weaving a tangled wisp of looseends, which was all he could command, into the homogeneous web of a sermon;and at last was driven to his old stock of carefully preservedpreordination sermons; where he was unfortunate enough to make choice ofthe one least of all fitted to awake comprehension or interest in hisaudience. 

His selection made, and the rest of the day thus cleared for inaction, hesat down and wrote a letter. Ever since his fall he had been successfullypractising the art of throwing a morsel straight into one or other of thethroats of the triple-headed Cerberus, his conscience--which was moreclever in catching such sops, than they were in choking the said howler;and one of them, the letter mentioned, was the sole wretched result of histalk with the soutar. Addressed to a late divinity-classmate, he asked init incidentally whether his old friend had ever heard anything of thelittle girl--he could just remember her name and the pretty face of her--Isy, general slavey to her aunt's lodgers in the Canongate, of whom he wasone: he had often wondered, he said, what had become of her, for he hadbeen almost in love with her for a whole half-year! I cannot but take theinquiry as the merest pretence, with the sole object of deceiving himselfinto the notion of having at least made one attempt to discover Isy. Hisfriend forgot to answer the question, and James Blatherwick never alludedto his having put it to him. 

CHAPTER XX

Never dawned Sunday upon soul more wretched. He had not indeed to climbinto his watchman's tower without the pretence of a proclamation, but onthat very morning his father had put the mare between the shafts of thegig to drive his wife to Tiltowie and their son's church, instead of thenearer and more accessible one in the next parish, whither they oftenerwent. Arrived there, it was not wonderful they should find themselves sodissatisfied with the spiritual food set before them, as to wish heartilythey had remained at home, or driven to the nearer church. The moment theservice was over, Mr. Blatherwick felt much inclined to return at once, without waiting an interview with his son; for he had no remark to make onthe sermon that would be pleasant either for his son or his wife to hear;but Marion combated the impulse with entreaties that grew almost angry, andPeter was compelled to yield, although sullenly. They waited in thechurchyard for the minister's appearance. 

"Weel, Jeemie, " said his father, shaking hands with him limply, "yon wassome steeve parritch ye gied us this mornin!--and the meal itsel was baithauld and soor!"

The mother gave her son a pitiful smile, as if in deprecation of herhusband's severity, but said not a word; and James, haunted by the taste offailure the sermon had left in his own mouth, and possibly troubled bysub-conscious motions of self-recognition, could hardly look his father inthe face, and felt as if he had been rebuked by him before all thecongregation. 

"Father, " he replied in a tone of some injury, "you do not know howdifficult it is to preach a fresh sermon every Sunday!"

"Ca' ye yon fresh, Jeemie? To me it was like the fuistit husks o' thehalf-faimisht swine! Man, I wuss sic provender would drive yersel whaurthere's better and to spare! Yon was lumps o' brose in a pig-wash o'stourum! The tane was eneuch to choke, and the tither to droon ye!"

James made a wry face, and the sight of his annoyance broke the icegathering over the well-spring in his mother's heart; tears rose in hereyes, and for one brief moment she saw the minister again her bairn. But hegave her no filial response; ambition, and greed of the praise of men, hadblocked in him the movements of the divine, and corrupted his wholesomestfeelings, so that now he welcomed freely as a conviction the suggestionthat his parents had never cherished any sympathy with him or hispreaching; which reacted in a sudden flow of resentment, and a thickeningof the ice on his heart. Some fundamental shock must dislodge that rooted, overmastering ice, if ever his wintered heart was to feel the power of areviving Spring!

The threesum family stood in helpless silence for a few moments; then thefather said to the mother--

"I doobt we maun be settin oot for hame, Mirran!"

"Will you not come into the manse, and have something before you go?" saidJames, not without anxiety lest his housekeeper should be taken atunawares, and their acceptance should annoy her: he lived in constant dreadof offending his housekeeper!

"Na, I thank ye, " returned his father: "it wad taste o' stew!" (_blowndust_). 

It was a rude remark; but Peter was not in a kind mood; and when loveitself is unkind, it is apt to be burning and bitter and merciless. 

Marion burst into tears. James turned away, and walked home with a gait ofwounded dignity. Peter went in haste toward the churchyard gate, tointerrupt with the bit his mare's feed of oats. Marion saw his handstremble pitifully as he put the headstall over the creature's ears, andreproached herself that she had given him such a cold-hearted son. Sheclimbed in a helpless way into the gig, and sat waiting for her husband. 

"I'm that dry 'at I could drink cauld watter!" he said, as he took hisplace beside her. 

They drove from the place of tombs, but they carried death with them, andleft the sunlight behind them. 

Neither spoke a word all the way. Not until she was dismounting at theirown door, did the mother venture her sole remark, "Eh, sirs!" It meant aworld of unexpressed and inexpressible misery. She went straight up to thelittle garret where she kept her Sunday bonnet, and where she said herprayers when in especial misery. Thence she descended after a while to herbedroom, there washed her face, and sadly prepared for a hungerlessencounter with the dinner Isy had been getting ready for them--hoping tohear something about the sermon, perhaps even some little word about theminister himself. But Isy too must share in the disappointment of thatvainly shining Sunday morning! Not a word passed between her master andmistress. Their son was called the pastor of the flock, but he was ratherthe porter of the sheepfold than the shepherd of the sheep. He was verycareful that the church should be properly swept and sometimes evengarnished; but about the temple of the Holy Ghost, the hearts of hissheep, he knew nothing, and cared as little. The gloom of his parents, their sense of failure and loss, grew and deepened all the dull hotafternoon, until it seemed almost to pass their endurance. At last, however, it abated, as does every pain, for life is at its root: theretoordained, it slew itself by exhaustion. "But, " thought the mother, "there'sMonday coming, and what am I to do then?" With the new day would returnthe old trouble, the gnawing, sickening pain that she was childless: herdaughter was gone, and no son was left her! Yet the new day when it came, brought with it its new possibility of living one day more!

But the minister was far more to be pitied than those whose misery he was. All night long he slept with a sense of ill-usage sublying hisconsciousness, and dominating his dreams; but with the sun came a doubtwhether he had not acted in unseemly fashion, when he turned and left hisfather and mother in the churchyard. Of course they had not treated himwell; but what would his congregation, some of whom might have beenlingering in the churchyard, have thought, to see him leave them as hedid? His only thought, however, was to take precautions against theirnatural judgment of his behaviour. 

After his breakfast, he set out, his custom of a Monday morning, for whathe called a quiet stroll; but his thoughts kept returning, ever with freshresentment, to the soutar's insinuation--for such he counted it--on theSaturday. Suddenly, uninvited, and displacing the phantasm of her father, arose before him the face of Maggie; and with it the sudden question, Whatthen was the real history of the baby on whom she spent such an irrationalamount of devotion. The soutar's tale of her finding him was tooapocryphal! Might not Maggie have made a slip? Or why should thepretensions of the soutar be absolutely trusted? Surely he had, some timeor other, heard a rumour! A certain satisfaction arose with the suggestionthat this man, so ready to believe evil of his neighbour, had not kept hisown reputation, or that of his house, perhaps, undefiled. He tried torebuke himself the next moment, it is true, for having harboured a moment'ssatisfaction in the wrong-doing of another: it was unbefitting the pastorof a Christian flock! But the thought came and came again, and he took nocontinuous trouble to cast it out. When he went home, he put a question ortwo to his housekeeper about the little one, but she only smiled paukily, and gave him no answer. 

After his two-o'clock dinner, he thought it would be Christian-like toforgive his parents: he would therefore call at Stonecross--which wouldtend to wipe out any undesirable offence on the minds of his parents, andalso to prevent any gossip that might injure him in his sacred profession!He had not been to see them for a long time; his visits to them gave himno satisfaction; but he never dreamed of attributing that to his own wantof cordiality. He judged it well, however, to avoid any appearance of evil, and therefore thought it might be his duty to pay them in future a hurriedcall about once a month. For the past, he excused himself because of thedistance, and his not being a good walker! Even now that he had made up hismind he was in no haste to set out, but had a long snooze in his armchairfirst: it was evening when he climbed the hill and came in sight of the lowgable behind which he was born. 

Isy was in the garden gathering up the linen she had spread to dry on thebushes, when his head came in sight at the top of the brae. She knew him atonce, and stooping behind the gooseberries, fled to the back of the house, and so away to the moor. James saw the white flutter of a sheet, butnothing of the hands that took it. He had heard that his mother had a niceyoung woman to help her in the house, but cherished so little interest inhome-affairs that the news waked in him no curiosity. 

Ever since she came to Stonecross, Isy had been on the outlook lest Jamesshould unexpectedly surprise her, and so be himself surprised into aninvoluntary disclosure of his relation to her; and not even by the longdeferring of her hope to see him yet again, had she come to pretermit hervigilance. She did not intend to avoid him altogether, only to take heednot to startle him into any recognition of her in the presence of hismother. But when she saw him approaching the house, her courage failedher, and she fled to avoid the danger of betraying both, herself and him. She was in truth ashamed of meeting him, in her imagination feelingguiltily exposed to his just reproaches. All the time he remained thatevening with his mother, she kept watching the house, not once showingherself until he was gone, when she reappeared as if just returned fromthe moor, where Mrs. Blatherwick imagined her still indulging the hope offinding her baby, concerning whom her mistress more than doubted the veryexistence, taking the supposed fancy for nothing but a half-crazy survivalfrom the time of her insanity before the Robertsons found her. 

The minister made a comforting peace with his mother, telling her a part ofthe truth, namely, that he had been much out of sorts during the week, andquite unable to write a new sermon; and that so he had been driven at thevery last to take an old one, and that so hurriedly that he had failed torecall correctly the subject and nature of it; that he had actually begunto read it before finding that it was altogether unsuitable--at which verymoment, fatally for his equanimity, he discovered his parents in thecongregation, and was so dismayed that he could not recover his self-possession, whence had ensued his apparent lack of cordiality! It was alame, yet somewhat plausible excuse, and served to silence for the moment, although it was necessarily so far from satisfying his mother's heart. Hisfather was out of doors, and him James did not see. 

CHAPTER XXI

As time went on, the terror of discovery grew rather than abated in themind of the minister. He could not tell whence or why it should be so, forno news of Isy reached him, and he felt, in his quieter moments, almostcertain that she could not have passed so completely out of his horizon, if she were still in the world. When most persuaded of this, he feltablest to live and forget the past, of which he was unable to recall anyportion with satisfaction. The darkness and silence left over it by hisunrepented offence, gave it, in his retrospect, a threatening aspect--outof which at any moment might burst the hidden enemy, the thing that mightbe known, and must not be known! He derived, however, a feeble and rightcowardly comfort from the reflection that he had done nothing to hide themiserable fact, and could not now. He even persuaded himself that if hecould he _would_ not do anything now to keep it secret; he would leave allto that Providence which seemed hitherto to have wrought on his behalf: hewould but keep a silence which no gentleman must break!--And why shouldthat come abroad which Providence itself concealed? Who had any claim toknow a mere passing fault, which the partner in it must least of alldesire exposed, seeing it would fall heavier upon her than upon him? Wherewas any call for that confession, about which the soutar had maundered sofoolishly? If, on the other hand, his secret should threaten to creep out, he would not, he flattered himself, move a finger to keep it hidden! hewould that moment disappear in some trackless solitude, rejoicing that hehad nothing left to wish undisclosed! As to the charge of hypocrisy thatwas sure to follow, he was innocent: he had never said anything he did notbelieve! he had made no professions beyond such as were involved in hisposition! he had never once posed as a man of Christian experience--likethe soutar for instance! Simply and only he had been overtaken in a fault, which he had never repeated, never would repeat, and which he was willingto atone for in any way he could!

On the following Saturday, the soutar was hard at work all day long on thenew boots the minister had ordered of him, which indeed he had almostforgotten in anxiety about the man for whom he had to make them. ForMacLear was now thoroughly convinced that the young man had "some sickoffence within his mind, " and was the more anxious to finish his boots andcarry them home the same night, that he knew his words had increased thesickness of that offence, which sickness might be the first symptom ofreturning health. For nothing attracted the soutar more than an opportunityof doing anything to lift from a human soul, were it but a single fold ofthe darkness that compassed it, and so let the light nearer to the troubledheart. As to what it might be that was harassing the minister's soul, hesternly repressed in himself all curiosity. The thought of Maggie'sprecious little foundling did indeed once more occur to him, but he triedall he could to shut it out. He did also desire that the minister shouldconfess, but he had no wish that he should unbosom himself to him: fromsuch a possibility, indeed, he shrank; while he did hope to persuade him toseek counsel of some one capable of giving him true advice. He also hopedthat, his displeasure gradually passing, he would resume his friendlyintercourse with himself; for somehow there was that in the gloomy parsonwhich powerfully attracted the cheery and hopeful soutar, who hoped histroubled abstraction might yet prove to be heart-hunger after a spiritualgood which he had not begun to find: he might not yet have understood, hethought, the good news about God--that he was just what Jesus seemed tothose that saw the glory of God in his face. The minister could not, thesoutar thought, have learned much of the truth concerning God; for itseemed to wake in him no gladness, no power of life, no strength to _be_. For _him_ Christ had not risen, but lay wrapt in his winding sheet! So faras James's feeling was concerned, the larks and the angels must all bemistaken in singing as they did!

At an hour that caused the soutar anxiety as to whether the housekeepermight not have retired for the night, he rang the bell of the manse-door;which in truth did bring the minister himself from his study, to confrontMacLear on the other side of the threshold, with the new boots in his hand. 

But the minister had come to see that his behaviour in his last visit tothe soutar must have laid him open to suspicion from him; and he was nowbent on removing what he counted the unfortunate impression his wordsmight have made. Wishing therefore to appear to cherish no offence over hisparishioner's last words to him ere they parted, and so obliterate anysuggestion of needed confession lurking behind his own words with which hehad left him, he now addressed him with an _abandon_ which, gloomy inspirit as he habitually was, he could yet assume in a moment when themasking instinct was aroused in him--

"Oh, Mr. MacLear, " he said jocularly, "I am glad you have just managed toescape breaking the Sabbath! You have had a close shave! It wants tenminutes, hardly more, to the awful midnight hour!"

"I doobt, sir, it would hae broken the Sawbath waur, to fail o' my word forthe sake o' a steik or twa that maittered naething to God or man!" returnedthe soutar. 

"Ah, well, we won't argue about it! but if we were inclined to be strict, the Sabbath began some "--here he looked at his watch--"some five hours andthree-quarters ago; that is, at six of the clock, on the evening ofSaturday!"

"Hoot, minister, ye ken ye're wrang there! for, Jew-wise, it began at saxo' the Friday nicht! But ye hae made it plain frae the poopit that ye haenae supperstition aboot the first day o' the week, the whilk alane hasaucht to dee wi' hiz Christians!--We're no a' Jews, though there's a heapo' them upo' this side the Tweed! I, for my pairt, confess nae obligationbut to drap workin, and sit doon wi' clean han's, or as clean as I can weelmak them, to the speeritooal table o' my Lord, whaur I aye try as weel toweir a clean and a cheerfu' face--that is, sae far as the sermon willpermit--and there's aye a pyke o' mate somewhaur intil 't! For isna it thebonny day whan the Lord wad hae us sit doon and ait wi himsel, wha madethe h'avens and the yirth, and the waters under the yirth that haud it up!And wilna he, upo this day, at the last gran' merridge-feast, poor oot thebonny reid wine, and say, 'Sit ye doon, bairns, and tak o' my best'!"

"Ay, ay, Mr. MacLear; that's a fine way to think of the Sabbath!" rejoinedthe minister, "and the very way I am in the habit of thinking of itmyself!--I'm greatly obliged to you for bringing home my boots; butindeed I could have managed very well without them!"

"Ay, sir, maybe; I dinna doobt ye hae pairs and pairs o' beets; but ye see_I_ couldna dee _wi'oot_ them, for I had _promised_. "

The word struck the minister to the heart. "He means something!" he said tohimself. "--But I never promised the girl anything! I _could_ not have doneit! I never thought of such a thing! I never said anything to bind me!"

He never saw that, whether he had promised or not, his deed had bound himmore absolutely than any words. 

All this time he was letting the soutar stand on the doorstep, with the newboots in his hand. 

"Come in, " he said at last, "and put them there in the window. It's abouttime we were all going to bed, I think--especially myself, to-morrow beingsermon-day!"

The soutar betook himself to his home and to bed, sorry that he had saidnothing, yet having said more than he knew. 

The next evening he listened to the best sermon he had yet heard from thatpulpit--a summary of the facts bearing on the resurrection of our Lord;--with which sermon, however, a large part of the congregation was anythingbut pleased; for the minister had admitted the impossibility ofreconciling, in every particular, the differing accounts of the doings andseeings of those who bore witness to it. 

"--As gien, " said the soutar, "the Lord wasna to shaw himsel till a' thathad seen he was up war agreed as to their recollection o' what fouk hadreportit!"

He went home edified and uplifted by his fresh contemplation of the storyof his Master's victory: thank God! he thought; his pains were over atlast! and through death he was lord for ever over death and evil, overpain and loss and fear, who was already through his father lord of creationand life, and of all things visible and invisible! He was Lord also of allthinking and feeling and judgment, able to give repentance and restoration, and to set right all that selfwill had set wrong! So greatly did the heartof his humble disciple rejoice in him, that he scandalized the reposingsabbath-street, by breaking out, as he went home, into a somewhatunmelodious song, "They are all gone down to hell with the weapons of theirwar!" to a tune nobody knew but himself, and which he could never have sungagain. "O Faithful and True, " he broke out once more as he reached his ownhouse; but checked himself abruptly, saying, "Tut, tut, the fowk'll think Ihae been drinkin'!--Eh, " he continued to himself as he went in, "gien Imicht but ance hear the name that no man kens but Himsel!"

The next day he was very tired, and could get through but little work; so, on the Tuesday he felt it would be right to take a holiday. Therefore heput a large piece of oatcake in his pocket, and telling Maggie he was goingto the hills, "to do nae thing and a'thing, baith at ance, a' day, "disappeared with a backward look and lingering smile. 

He went brimful of expectation, and was not disappointed in those he met bythe way. 

After walking some distance in quiescent peace, and having since noontidemet no one--to use his own fashion of speech--by which he meant that nospecial thought had arisen uncalled-for in his mind, always regarding sucha thought as a word direct from the First Thought, he turned his stepstoward Stonecross. He had known Peter Blatherwick for many years, andhonoured him as one in whom there was no guile; and now the desire to seehim came upon him: he wanted to share with him the pleasure and benefit hehad gathered from Sunday's sermon, and show the better quality of the foodtheir pastor had that day laid before his sheep. He knocked at the door, thinking to see the mistress, and hear from her where her husband waslikely to be found; but to his surprise, the farmer came himself to thedoor, where he stood in silence, with a look that seemed to say, "I knowyou; but what can you be wanting with me?" His face was troubled, andlooked not only sorrowful, but scared as well. Usually ruddy with health, and calm with content, it was now blotted with pallid shades, and seemed, as he held the door-handle without a word of welcome, that of one aware ofsomething unseen behind him. 

"What ails ye, Mr. Bletherwick?" asked the soutar, in a voice that falteredwith sympathetic anxiety. "Surely--I houp there's naething come ower themistress!"

"Na, I thank ye; she's vera weel. But a dreid thing has befa'en her and me. It's little mair nor an hoor sin syne 'at oor Isy--ye maun hae h'ard tello' Isy, 'at we baith had sic a fawvour for--a' at ance she jist drappitdoon deid as gien shotten wi' a gun! In fac I thoucht for a meenut, thoughI h'ard nae shot, that sic had been the case. The ae moment she steednewsin wi' her mistress i' the kitchie, and the neist she was in a heapupo' the fleer o' 't!--But come in, come in. "

"Eh, the bonnie lassie!" cried the shoemaker, without moving to enter; "Imin' upo' her weel, though I believe I never saw her but ance!--a fine, delicat pictur o' a lassie, that luikit up at ye as gien she made ye kin'lywelcome to onything she could gie or get for ye!"

"Aweel, as I'm tellin ye, " said the farmer, "she's awa'; and we'll see herno more till the earth gies up her deid! The wife's in there wi' what'sleft o' her, greitin as gien she wad greit her een oot. Eh, but she lo'edher weel:--Doon she drappit, and no even a moment to say her prayers!"

"That maitters na muckle--no a hair, in fac!" returned the soutar. "It wasthe Father o' her, nane ither, that took her. He wantit her hame; and he'sno are to dee onything ill, or at the wrang moment! Gien a meenut mair hadbeen ony guid til her, thinkna ye she wud hae had that meenut!"

"Willna ye come in and see her? Some fowk canna bide to luik upo the deid, but ye're no are o' sic!"

"Na; it's trowth I daurna be nane o' sic. I s' richt wullinly gang wi' yeto luik upo the face o' ane 'at's won throuw!"

"Come awa' than; and maybe the Lord 'ill gie ye a word o' comfort for themistress, for she taks on terrible aboot her. It braks my hert to see her!"

"The hert o' baith king and cobbler's i' the ae han' o' the Lord, " answeredthe soutar solemnly; "and gien my hert indite onything, my tongue 'ill beready to speyk the same. "

He followed the farmer--who trode softly, as if he feared disturbing thesleeper--upon whom even the sudden silences of the world would break nomore. 

Mr. Blatherwick led the way to the parlour, and through it to a closetbehind, used as the guest-chamber. There, on a little white bed with dimitycurtains, lay the form of Isobel. The eyes of the soutar, in whom hadlingered yet a hope, at once revealed that he saw she was indeed gone toreturn no more. Her lovely little face, although its beautiful eyes wereclosed, was even lovelier than before; but her arms and hands lay straightby her sides; their work was gone from them; no voice would call her anymore! she might sleep on, and take her rest!

"I had but to lay them straucht, " sobbed her mistress; "her een she hadclosed hersel as she drappit! Eh, but she _was_ a bonny lassie--and aguid!--hardly less nor ain bairn to me!"

"And to me as weel!" supplemented Peter, with a choked sob. 

"And no ance had I paid her a penny wage!" cried Marion, with suddenremorseful reminiscence. 

"She'll never think o' wages noo!" said her husband. "We'll sen' them tothe hospital, and that'll ease yer min', Mirran!"

"Eh, she was a dacent, mensefu, richt lo'able cratur!" cried Marion. "Shenever _said_ naething to jeedge by, but I hae a glimmer o' houp 'at she_may_ ha' been ane o' the Lord's ain. "

"Is that a' ye can say, mem?" interposed the soutar. "Surely ye wadna daurimaigine her drappit oot o' _his_ han's!"

"Na, " returned Marion; "but I wad richt fain ken her fair intil them! Whais there to assure 's o' her faith i' the atonement?"

"Deed, I kenna, and I carena, mem! I houp she had faith i' naething, thingnor thoucht, but the Lord himsel! Alive or deid, we're in his han's whadee'd for us, revealin his Father til 's, " said the soutar; "--and gien shedidna ken Him afore, she wull noo! The holy All-in-all be wi' her i' thedark, or whatever comes!--O God, hand up her heid, and latna the wattersgang ower her!"

So-called Theology rose, dull, rampant, and indignant; but the solemn faceof the dead interdicted dispute, and Love was ready to hope, if not quiteto believe. Nevertheless to those guileless souls, the words of the soutarsounded like blasphemy: was not her fate settled, and for ever? Had notdeath in a moment turned her into an immortal angel, or an equally immortaldevil? Only how, at such a moment, with the peaceful face before them, werethey to argue the possibility that she, the loving, the gentle, whosefault they knew but by her own voluntary confession, was now as utterlyindifferent to the heart of the living God, as if He had never created her--nay even had become hateful to him! No one spoke; and the soutar, aftergazing on the dead for a while, prayer overflowing his heart, but neverreaching his lips, turned slowly, and departed without a word. 

As he reached his own door, he met the minister, and told him of the sorrowthat had befallen his parents, adding that it was plain they were in soreneed of his sympathy. James, although marvelling at their being so muchtroubled by the death of merely a servant, was roused by the tale to theduty of his profession; and although his heart had never yet drawn himeither to the house of mourning or the house of mirth, he judged itbecoming to pay another visit to Stonecross, thinking it, however, ratherhard that he should have to go again so soon. It pleased the soutar to seehim face about at once, however, and start for the farm with a quickerstride than, since his return to Tiltowie as its minister, he had seen himput forth. 

James had not the slightest foreboding of whom he was about to see in thearms of Death. But even had he had some feeling of what was awaiting him, Idare not even conjecture the mood in which he would have approached thehouse--whether one of compunction, or of relief. But utterly unconscious ofthe discovery toward which he was rushing, he hurried on, with a faintpleasure at the thought of having to expostulate with his mother upon thewaste of such an unnecessary expenditure of feeling. Toward his father, hewas aware of a more active feeling of disapproval, if not indeed one ofrepugnance. James Blatherwick was of such whose sluggish natures require, for the melting of their stubbornness, and their remoulding into forms ofstrength and beauty, such a concentration of the love of God that itbecomes a consuming fire. 

CHAPTER XXII

The night had fallen when he reached the farm. The place was silent; itsdoors were all shut; and when he opened the nearest, seldom used but forthe reception of strangers, not a soul was to be seen; no one came to meethim, for no one had even thought of him, and certainly no one, except itwere the dead, desired his coming. He went into the parlour, and there, from the dim chamber beyond, whose door stood open, appeared his mother. Her heart big with grief, she clasped him in her arms, and laid her cheekagainst his bosom: higher she could not reach, and nearer than hisbreast-bone she could not get to him. No endearment was customary betweenthem: James had never encouraged or missed any; neither did he know how toreceive such when offered. 

"I am distressed, mother, " he began, "to see you so upset; and I cannothelp thinking such a display of feeling unnecessary. If I may say so, itseems to me unreasonable. You cannot, in such a brief period as this newmaid of yours has spent with you, have developed such an affection forher, as this--" he hesitated for a word, "--as this _bouleversement_ wouldseem to indicate! The young woman can hardly be a relative, or I shouldsurely have heard of her existence! The suddenness of the occurrence, ofwhich I heard only from my shoemaker, MacLear, must have wroughtdisastrously upon your nerves! Come, come, dear mother! you must indeedcompose yourself! It is quite unworthy of you, to yield to such a paroxysmof unnatural and uncalled-for grief! Surely it is the part of a Christianlike you, to meet with calmness, especially in the case of one you haveknown so little, that inevitable change which neither man nor woman canavoid longer than a few years at most! Of course, the appallinginstantaneousness of it in the present case, goes far to explain and excuseyour emotion, but now at least, after so many hours have elapsed, it issurely time for reason to resume her sway! Was it not Schiller who said, 'Death cannot be an evil, for it is universal'?--At all events, it is notan unmitigated evil!" he added--with a sigh, as if for his part he wasprepared to welcome it. 

During this prolonged and foolish speech, the gentle woman, whose mother-heart had loved the poor girl that bore her daughter's name, had beenrestraining her sobs behind her handkerchief; but now, as she heard herson's cold commonplaces, it was, perhaps, a little wholesome anger thatroused her, and made her able to speak. 

"Ye didna ken her, laddie, " she cried, "or ye wad never mint at layin yertongue upon her that gait!--'Deed na, ye wadna!--But I doobt gien ever yecould hae come to ken her as she was--sic a bonny, herty sowl as ance dwaltin yon white-faced, patient thing, lyin i' the chaumer there--wi' the stangoot o' her hert at last, and left the sharper i' mine! But me and yerfather--eh, weel we lo'ed her! for to hiz she was like oor ain Isy, --ay, mair a dochter nor a servan--wi'a braw lovin kin'ness in her, no to beluikit for frae ony son, and sic as we never had frae ony afore but oor ainIsy. --Jist gang ye intil the closet there, gien ye wull, and ye'll seewhat'll maybe saften yer hert a bit, and lat ye unerstan' what mak o' athing's come to the twa auld fowk ye never cared muckle aboot!"

James felt bitterly aggrieved by this personal remark of his mother. Howunfair she was! What had _he_ ever done to offend her? Had he not alwaysbehaved himself properly--except indeed in that matter of which neithershe, nor living soul else, knew anything, or would ever know! What righthad she then to say such things to him! Had he not fulfilled theexpectations with which his father sent him to college? had he not gained aposition whose reflected splendour crowned them the parents of JamesBlatherwick? She showed him none of the consideration or respect he had sojustly earned but never demanded! He rose suddenly, and with never athought save to leave his mother so as to manifest his displeasure withher, stalked heedlessly into the presence of the more heedless dead. 

The night had indeed fallen, but, the little window of the room lookingwestward, and a bar of golden light yet lying like a resurrection stoneover the spot where the sun was buried, a pale sad gleam, softly vanishing, hovered, hardly rested, upon the lovely, still, unlooking face, that laywhite on the scarcely whiter pillow. Coming out of the darker room, thesharp, low light blinded him a little, so that he saw without any certaintyof perception; yet he seemed to have something before him not altogetherunfamiliar, giving him a suggestion as of something he had known once, perhaps ought now to recognize, but had forgotten: the reality of it seemedto be obscured by the strange autumnal light entering almost horizontally. Concluding himself oddly affected by the sight of a room he had regardedwith some awe in his childhood, and had not set foot in it for a long time, he drew a little nearer to the bed, to look closer at the face of thisparagon of servants, whose loss was causing his mother a sorrow sounreasonably poignant. 

The sense of her resemblance to some one grew upon him; but not yet had hebegun to recognize the death-changed countenance; he became assured onlythat he _had_ seen that still face before, and that, would she but openthose eyes, he should know at once who she was. 

Then the true suspicion flashed upon him: good God! _could it be_ the deadIsy? Of course not! It was the merest illusion! a nonsensical fancy, causedby the irregular mingling of the light and darkness! In the daytime hecould not have been so befooled by his imagination! He had always known theclearness, both physical and mental, with which he saw everything!Nevertheless, the folly had power to fix him staring where he stood, withhis face leant close to the face of the dead. It was only like, it couldnot be the same! and yet he could not turn and go from it! Why did he not, by the mere will in whose strength he took pride, force his way out of theroom? He stirred not a foot; he stared and stood. And as he stared, thedead face seemed to come nearer him through the darkness, growing more andmore like the only girl he had ever, though even then only in fancy, loved. If it was not she, how could the dead look so like the living he had onceknown? At length what doubt was left, changed suddenly to assurance that itmust be she. And--dare I say it?--it brought him a sense of relief! Hebreathed a sigh of such false, rascally peace as he had not known since hissin, and with that sigh he left the room. Passing his mother, who stillwept in the now deeper dusk of the parlour, with the observation that therewas no moon, and it would be quite dark before he reached the manse, hebade her good-night, and went out. 

When Peter, who unable to sit longer inactive had gone to the stable, re-entered, foiled in the attempt to occupy himself, and sat down by hiswife, she began to talk about the funeral preparations, and the personsto be invited. But such sorrow overtook him afresh, that even his wife, herself inconsolable over her loss, was surprised at the depth of his grieffor one who was no relative. It seemed to him indelicate, almost heartlessof her to talk so soon of burying the dear one but just gone from theirsight: it was unnecessary dispatch, and suggested a lack of reverence!

"What for sic a hurry?" he expostulated. "Isna there time eneuch to put ooto' yer sicht what ye ance lo'ed sae weel? Lat me be the nicht; the morn'ill be here sene eneuch! Lat my sowl rest a moment wi' deith, and haud awawi yer funeral. 'Sufficient til the day, ' ye ken!"

"Eh dear, but I'm no like you, Peter! Whan the sowl's gane, I tak nocontent i' the presence o' the puir worthless body, luikin what it nevermair can be! Na, I wad be rid o' 't, I confess!--But be it as ye wull, myain man! It's a sair hert ye hae as weel as me i' yer body this nicht; andwe maun beir ane anither's burdens! The dauty may lie as we hae laid her, the nicht throuw, and naething said: there's little to be dene for her;she's a bonny clean corp as ever was, and may weel lie a week afore we puther awa'!--There's no need for ony to watch her; tyke nor baudrins 'illnever come near her. --I hae aye won'ert what for fowk wad sit up wi thedeid: yet I min' me weel they aye did i' the auld time. "

In this she showed, however, and in this alone, that the girl she lamentedwas not her own daughter; for when the other Isy died, her body was neverfor a moment left with the eternal spaces, as if she might wake, and beterrified to find herself alone. Then, as if God had forgotten them, theywent to bed without saying their usual prayers together: I fancy the visitof her son had been to Marion like the chill of a wandering iceberg. 

In the morning the farmer, up first as usual, went into the death-chamberand sat down by the side of the bed, reproaching himself that he hadforgotten "worship" the night before. 

And as he sat looking at the white face, he became aware of what might be alittle tinge of colour--the faintest possible--upon the lips. He knew itmust be a fancy, or at best an accident without significance--for he hadheard of such a thing! Still, even if his eyes were deceiving him, he mustshrink from hiding away such death out of sight! The merest counterfeit oflife was too sacred for burial! Just such might the little daughter ofJairus have looked when the Lord took her by the hand ere she arose!

Thus feeling, and thus seeming to see on the lips of the girl a doubtfultinge of the light of life, it was no wonder that Peter could not entertainthe thought of her immediate burial. They must at least wait some sign, some unmistakable proof even, of change begun!

Instead, therefore, of going into the yard to set in motion the needfulpreparations for the harvest at hand, he sat on with the dead: he could notleave her until his wife should come to take his place and keep hercompany! He brought a bible from the next room, sat down again, and waitedbeside her. In doubtful, timid, tremulous hope, not worthy of the name ofhope--a mere sense of a scarcely possible possibility, he waited what hewould not consent to believe he waited for. He would not deceive himself;he would give his wife no hint, but wait to see how she saw! He would putto her no leading question even, but watch for any start or touch ofsurprise she might betray!

By and by Marion appeared, gazed a moment on the dead, looked pitifully inher husband's face, and went out again. 

"She sees naething!" said Peter to himself. "I s' awa' to my wark!--Still Iwinna hae her laid aside afore I'm a wheen surer o' what she is--leevinsowl or deid clod!"

With a sad sense of vanished self-delusion, he rose and went out. As hepassed through the kitchen, his wife followed him to the door. "Ye'll seeand sen' a message to the vricht _(carpenter)_ the day?" she whispered. 

"I'm no likly to forget!" he answered; "but there's nae hurry, seem there'sno life concernt!"

"Na, nane; the mair's the pity!" she answered; and Peter knew, with a gladrelief, that his wife was coming to herself from the terrible blow. 

She sent the cowboy to the Cormacks' cottage, to tell Eppie to come to her. 

The old woman came, heard what details there were to the sad story, shookher head mournfully, and found nothing to say; but together they set aboutpreparing the body for burial. That done, the mind of Mrs. Blatherwick wasat ease, and she sat expecting the visit of the carpenter. But thecarpenter did not come. 

On the Thursday morning the soutar came to inquire after his friends atStanecross, and the gudewife gave him a message to Willie Wabster, the_vricht_, to see about the coffin. 

But the soutar, catching sight of the farmer in the yard, went and had atalk with him; and the result was that he took no message to the carpenter;and when Peter went in to his dinner, he still said there was no hurry: whyshould she be so anxious to heap earth over the dead? For still he saw, orfancied he saw, the same possible colour on Isy's cheek--like the faintestsunset-red, or that in the heart of the palest blush-rose, which is eitherglow or pallor as you choose to think it. So the first week of Isy's deathpassed, and still she lay in state, ready for the grave, but unburied. 

Not a few of the neighbours came to see her, and were admitted where shelay; and some of them warned Marion that, when the change came, it wouldcome suddenly; but still Peter would not hear of her being buried "withthat colour on her cheek!" And Marion had come to see, or to imagine withher husband that she saw the colour. So, each in turn, they kept watchingher: who could tell but the Lord might be going to work a miracle for them, and was not in the meantime only trying them, to see how long theirpatience and hope would endure!

The report spread through the neighbourhood, and reached Tiltowie, where itspeedily pervaded street and lane:--"The lass at Stanecross, she's lyindeid, and luikin as alive as ever she was!" From street and lane the peoplewent crowding to see the strange sight, and would have overrun the house, but had a reception by no means cordial: the farmer set men at every door, and would admit no one. Angry and ashamed, they all turned and went--except a few of the more inquisitive, who continued lurking about in thehope of hearing something to carry home and enlarge upon. 

As to the minister, he insisted upon disbelieving the whole thing, and yetwas made not a little uncomfortable by the rumour. Such a foe tosuperstition that in his mind he silently questioned the truth of allrecords of miracles, to whomsoever attributed, he was yet haunted by afear which he dared not formulate. Of course, whatever might take place, itcould be no miracle, but the mere natural effect of natural causes! nonethe less, however, did he dread what might happen: he feared Isy herself, and what she might disclose! For a time he did not dare again go near theplace. The girl might be in a trance! she might revive suddenly, and callout his name! She might even reveal all! She had always been a strangegirl! What if, indeed, she were even being now kept alive to tell thetruth, and disgrace him before all the world! Horrible as was the thought, might it not be well, in view of the possibility of her revival, that heshould be present to hear anything she might say, and take precautionagainst it? He resolved, therefore, to go to Stonecross, and make inquiryafter her, heartily hoping to find her undoubtedly and irrecoverably dead. 

In the meantime, Peter had been growing more and more expectant, and hadnearly forgotten all about the coffin, when a fresh rumour came to the earsof William Webster, the coffin-maker, that the young woman at Stonecrosswas indeed and unmistakably gone; whereupon he, having lost patience overthe uncertainty that had been crippling his operations, questioned no morewhat he had so long expected, set himself at once to his supposed task, andfinished what he had already begun and indeed half ended. The same nightthat the minister was on his way to the farm, he passed Webster and his mancarrying the coffin home through the darkness: he descried what it was, andhis heart gave a throb of satisfaction. The men reaching Stonecross in thepitch-blackness of a gathering storm, they stupidly set up their burden onend by the first door, and went on to the other, where they made a vaineffort to convey to the deaf Eppie a knowledge of what they had done. Shemaking them no intelligible reply, there they left the coffin leaning upagainst the wall; and, eager to get home ere the storm broke upon them, setoff at what speed was possible to them on the rough and dark road toTiltowie, now in their turn meeting and passing the minister on his way. 

By the time James arrived at Stonecross, it was too dark for him to see theghastly sentinel standing at the nearer door. He walked into the parlour;and there met his father coming from the little chamber where his wife wasseated. 

"Isna this a most amazin thing, and houpfu' as it's amazing?" cried hisfather. "What _can_ there be to come oot o' 't? Eh, but the w'ys o' theAlmichty are truly no to be mizzered by mortal line! The lass maun surelybe intendit for marvellous things, to be dealt wi' efter sic an extra-ordnar fashion! Nicht efter nicht has the tane or the tither o' hiz twabeen sittin here aside her, lattin the hairst tak its chance, and i' thedaytime lea'in 'maist a' to the men, me sleepin and they at their wark; andhere the bonny cratur lyin, as quaiet as gien she had never seen tribble, for thirteen days, and no change past upon her, no more than on the threeholy bairns i' the fiery furnace! I'm jist in a trimle to think what's tocome oot o' 't a'! God only kens! we can but sit still and wait hisappearance! What think ye, Jeemie?--Whan the Lord was deid upo' the cross, they waitit but twa nichts, and there he was up afore them! here we haewaitit, close on a haill fortnicht--and naething even to pruv that she'sdeid! still less ony sign that ever she'll speyk word til's again!--Whatthink ye o' 't, man?"

"Gien ever she returns to life, I greatly doobt she'll ever bring back hersenses wi' her!" said the mother, joining them from the inner chamber. 

"Hoot, ye min' the tale o' the lady--Lady Fanshawe, I believe they ca'dher? She cam til hersel a' richt i' the en'!" said Peter. 

"I don't remember the story, " said James. "Such old world tales are littleto be heeded. "

"I min' naething aboot it but jist that muckle, " said his father. "And Ican think o' naething but that bonny lassie lyin there afore me naitherdeid nor alive! I jist won'er, Jeames, that ye're no as concernt, and asfillt wi' doobt and even dreid anent it as I am mysel!"

"We're all in the hands of the God who created life and death, " returnedJames, in a pious tone. 

The father held his peace. 

"And He'll bring licht oot o' the vera dark o' the grave!" said the mother. 

Her faith, or at least her hope, once set agoing, went farther than herhusband's, and she had a greater power of waiting than he. James had sorelytried both her patience and her hope, and not even now had she given himup. 

"Ye'll bide and share oor watch this ae nicht, Jeames?" said Peter. "It'san elrische kin o' a thing to wauk up i' the mirk mids, wi' a deid corpaside ye!--No 'at even yet I gie her up for deid! but I canna help feelinsome eerie like--no to say fleyt! Bide, man, and see the nicht oot wi' 's, and gie yer mither and me some hert o' grace. "

James had little inclination to add another to the party, and began tomurmur something about his housekeeper. But his mother cut him short withthe indignant remark--

"Hoot, what's _she_?--Naething to you or ony o' 's! Lat her sit up for ye, gien she likes! Lat her sit, I say, and never waste thoucht upo' thequeyn!"

James had not a word to answer. Greatly as he shrank from the ordeal, hemust encounter it without show of reluctance! He dared not even propose tosit in the kitchen and smoke. With better courage than will, he consentedto share their vigil. "And then, " he reflected, "if she should come toherself, there would be the advantage he had foreseen and even halfdesired!"

His mother went to prepare supper for them. His father rose, and saying hewould have a look at the night, went toward the door; for even his strangesituation could not entirely smother the anxiety of the husbandman. ButJames glided past him to the door, determined not to be left alone withthat thing in the chamber. 

But in the meantime the wind had been rising, and the coffin had beentilting and resettling on its narrower end. At last, James opening thedoor, the gruesome thing fell forward just as he crossed the threshold, knocked him down, and settled on the top of him. His father, close behindhim, tumbled over the obstruction, divined, in the light of a lamp in thepassage, what the prostrate thing was, and scrambling to his feet with theonly oath he had, I fully believe, ever uttered, cried: "Damn that fule, Willie Wabster! Had he naething better to dee nor sen' to the hoose coffinsnaebody wantit--and syne set them doon like rotten-traps _(rat-traps)_ towhomel puir Jeemie!" He lifted the thing from off the minister, who rosenot much hurt, but both amazed and offended at the mishap, and went to hismother in the kitchen. 

"Dinna say muckle to yer mither, Jeames laad, " said his father as he went;"that is, dinna explain preceesely hoo the ill-faured thing happent. _I'll_hae amen's _(amends, vengeance)_ upon him!" So saying, he took theoffensive vehicle, awkward burden as it was, in his two arms, and carryingit to the back of the cornyard, shoved it over the low wall into the dryditch at its foot, where he heaped dirty straw from the stable over it. 

"It'll be lang, " he vowed to himsel, "or Willie Wabster hear the last o'this!--and langer yet or he see the glint o' the siller he thoucht he wasyirnin by 't!--It's come and cairry 't hame himsel he sall, the muckleidiot! He may turn 't intil a breid-kist, or what he likes, the gomf!"

"Fain wud I screw the reid heid o' 'im intil that same kist, and hand himthere, short o' smorin!" he muttered as he went back to the house. --"Faith, I could 'maist beery him ootricht!" he concluded, with a grim smile. 

Ere he re-entered the house, however, he walked a little way up the hill, to cast over the vault above him a farmer's look of inquiry as to thecoming night, and then went in, shaking his head at what the clouds boded. 

Marion had brought their simple supper into the parlour, and was sittingthere with James, waiting for him. When they had ended their meal, andEppie had removed the remnants, the husband and wife went into theadjoining chamber and sat down by the bedside, where James presently joinedthem with a book in his hand. Eppie, having _rested_ the fire in thekitchen, came into the parlour, and sat on the edge of a chair just insidethe door. 

Peter had said nothing about the night, and indeed, in his wrath with thecarpenter, had hardly noted how imminent was the storm; but the air hadgrown very sultry, and the night was black as pitch, for a solid mass ofcloud had blotted out the stars: it was plain that, long before morning, aterrible storm must break. But midnight came and went, and all was verystill. 

Suddenly the storm was upon them, with a forked, vibrating flash of angrylight that seemed to sting their eyeballs, and was replaced by a darknessthat seemed to crush them like a ponderous weight. Then all at once theweight itself seemed torn and shattered into sound--into heaps of bursting, roaring, tumultuous billows. Another flash, yet another and anotherfollowed, each with its crashing uproar of celestial avalanches. At thefirst flash Peter had risen and gone to the larger window of the parlour, to discover, if possible, in what direction the storm was travelling. Marion, feeling as if suddenly unroofed, followed him, and James was leftalone with the dead. He sat, not daring to move; but when the third flashcame, it flickered and played so long about the dead face, that it seemedfor minutes vividly visible, and his gaze was fixed on it, fascinated. Thesame moment, without a single preparatory movement, Isy was on her feet, erect on the bed. 

A great cry reached the ears of the father and mother. They hurried intothe chamber: James lay motionless and senseless on the floor: a man's nerveis not necessarily proportioned to the hardness of his heart! The verity ofthe thing had overwhelmed him. 

Isobel had fallen, and lay gasping and sighing on the bed. She knew nothingof what had happened to her; she did not yet know herself--did not knowthat her faithless lover lay on the floor by her bedside. 

When the mother entered, she saw nothing--only heard Isy's breathing. Butwhen her husband came with a candle, and she saw her son on the floor, sheforgot Isy; all her care was for James. She dropped on her knees besidehim, raised his head, held it to her bosom, and lamented over him as if hewere dead. She even felt annoyed with the poor girl's moaning, as shestruggled to get back to life. Why should she whose history was such, bethe cause of mishap to her reverend and honoured son? Was she worth one ofhis little fingers! Let her moan and groan and sigh away there--what did itmatter! she could well enough wait a bit! She would see to her presently, when her precious son was better!

Very different was the effect upon Peter when he saw Isy coming to herself. It was a miracle indeed! It could be nothing less! White as was her face, there was in it an unmistakable look of reviving life! When she opened hereyes and saw her master bending over her, she greeted him with a faintsmile, closed her eyes again, and lay still. James also soon began to showsigns of recovery, and his father turned to him. 

With the old sullen look of his boyhood, he glanced up at his mother, stilloverwhelming him with caresses and tears. 

"Let me up, " he said querulously, and began to wipe his face. "I feel sostrange! What can have made me turn so sick all at once?"

"Isy's come to life again!" said his mother, with modified show ofpleasure. 

"Oh!" he returned. 

"Ye're surely no sorry for that!" rejoined his mother, with a reaction ofdisappointment at his lack of sympathy, and rose as she said it. 

"I'm pleased to hear it--why not?" he answered. "But she gave me a terriblestart! You see, I never expected it, as you did!"

"Weel, ye _are_ hertless, Jeernie!" exclaimed his father. "Hae ye nae sparko' fellow-feelin wi' yer ain mither, whan the lass comes to life 'at she'sbeen fourteen days murnin for deid? But losh! she's aff again!--deid or ina dwaum, I kenna!--Is't possible she's gaein to slip frae oor hand yet?"

James turned his head aside, and murmured something inaudibly. 

But Isy had only fainted. After some eager ministrations on the part ofPeter, she came to herself once more, and lay panting, her forehead wet aswith the dew of death. 

The farmer ran out to a loft in the yard, and calling the herd-boy, aclever lad, told him to rise and ride for the doctor as fast as the marecould lay feet to the road. 

"Tell him, " he said, "that Isy has come to life, and he maun munt and ridelike the vera mischeef, or she'll be deid again afore he wins til her. Gienye canna get the tae doctor, awa wi' ye to the tither, and dinna ley himtill ye see him i' the saiddle and startit. Syne ye can ease the mere, andcome hame at yer leisur; he'll be here lang afore ye!--Tell him I'll peyhim ony fee he likes, be't what it may, and never compleen!--Awa' wi' yelike the vera deevil!"

"I didna think ye kenned hoo _he_ rade, " answered the boy pawkily, as heshot to the stable. "Weel, " he added, "ye maunna gley asklent at the merewhan she comes hame some saipy-like!"

When he returned on the mare's back, the farmer was waiting for him withthe whisky-bottle in his hand. 

"Na, na!" he said, seeing the lad eye the bottle, "it's no for you! ye wanta' the sma' wit ye ever hed: it's no _you_ 'at has to gallop; ye hae but tostick on!--Hae, Susy!"

He poured half a tumblerful into a soup-plate, and held it out to the mare, who, never snuffing at it, licked it up greedily, and immediately startedof herself at a good pace. 

Peter carried the bottle to the chamber, and got Isy to swallow a little, after which she began to recover again. Nor did Marion forget to administera share to James, who was not a little in want of it. 

When, within an hour, the doctor arrived full of amazed incredulity, hefound Isy in a troubled sleep, and James gone to bed. 

CHAPTER XXIII

The next day, Isy, although very weak, was greatly better. She was, however, too ill to get up; and Marion seemed now in her element, with twoinvalids, both dear to her, to look after. She hardly knew for which to bemore grateful--her son, given helpless into her hands, unable to repel thelove she lavished upon him; or the girl whom God had taken from the verythroat of the swallowing grave. But her heart, at first bubbling over withgladness, soon grew calmer, when she came to perceive how very ill Jameswas. And before long she began to fear she must part with her child, whoselack of love hitherto made the threatened separation the more frightful toher. She turned even from the thought of Isy's restoration, as if that wereitself an added wrong. From the occasional involuntary association of thetwo in her thought, she would turn away with a sort of meek loathing. Tohold her James for one moment in the same thought with any girl lessspotless than he, was to disgrace herself!

James was indeed not only very ill, but growing slowly worse; for he laystruggling at last in the Backbite of Conscience, who had him in herunrelaxing jaws, and was worrying him well. Whence the holy dog came weknow, but how he got a hold of him to begin his saving torment, who shallunderstand but the maker of men and of their secret, inexorable friend!Every beginning is infinitesimal, and wrapt in the mystery of creation. 

Its results only, not its modes of operation or their stages, I may ventureattempting to convey. It was the wind blowing where it listed, doingeverything and explaining nothing. That wind from the timeless andspaceless and formless region of God's feeling and God's thought, blew openthe eyes of this man's mind so that he saw, and became aware that he saw. It blew away the long-gathered vapours of his self-satisfaction andconceit; it blew wide the windows of his soul, that the sweet odour of hisfather's and mother's thoughts concerning him might enter; and when itentered, he knew it for what it was; it blew back to him his own judgmentsof them and their doings, and he saw those judgments side by side with hisnew insights into their real thoughts and feelings; it blew away the desertsands of his own moral dulness, indifference, and selfishness, that had solong hidden beneath them the watersprings of his own heart, existent byand for love and its gladness; it cleared all his conscious being, madehim understand that he had never hitherto loved his mother or his father, or any neighbour; that he had never loved God one genuine atom, neverloved the Lord Christ, his Master, or cared in the least that he had diedfor him; had never at any moment loved Isy--least of all when to himselfhe pleaded in his own excuse that he had loved her. That blowing wind, which he could not see, neither knew whence it came, and yet less whitherit was going, began to blow together his soul and those of his parents;the love in his father and in his mother drew him; the memories of hischildhood drew him; for the heart of God himself was drawing him, as ithad been from the first, only now first he began to feel its drawing; andas he yielded to that drawing and went nearer, God drew ever more and morestrongly; until at last--I know not, I say, how God did it, or whereby hemade the soul of James Blatherwick different from what it had been--but atlast it grew capable of loving, and did love: first, he yielded to lovebecause he could not help it; then he willed to love because he couldlove; then, become conscious of the power, he loved the more, and so wenton to love more and more. And thus did James become what he had to become--or perish. 

But for this liberty, he had to pass through wild regions of torment andhorror; he had to become all but mad, and know it; his body, and his soulas well, had to be parched with fever, thirst, and fear; he had to sleepand dream lovely dreams of coolness and peace and courage; then wake andknow that all his life he had been dead, and now first was alive; thatlove, new-born, was driving out the gibbering phantoms; that now indeedit was good to be, and know others alive about him; that now life waspossible, because life was to love, and love was to live. What love was, or how it was, he could not tell; he knew only that it was the will andthe joy of the Father and the Son. 

Long ere he arrived at this, however, the falsehood and utter meanness ofhis behaviour to Isy had become plain to him, bringing with it such anoverpowering self-contempt and self-loathing, that he was tempted even toself-destruction to escape the knowledge that he was himself the very manwho had been such, and had done such things. "To know my deed, 'twere bestnot know myself!" he might have said with Macbeth. But he must live on, forhow otherwise could he make any atonement? And with the thought ofreparation, and possible forgiveness and reconcilement, his old love forIsy rushed in like a flood, grown infinitely nobler, and was uplifted atlast into a genuine self-abandoning devotion. But until this final changearrived, his occasional paroxysms of remorse touched almost on madness, andfor some time it seemed doubtful whether his mind must not retain apermanent tinge of insanity. He conceived a huge disgust of his office andall its requirements; and sometimes bitterly blamed his parents for notinterfering with his choice of a profession that was certain to be hisruin. 

One day, having had no delirium for some hours, he suddenly called out asthey stood by his bed--

"Oh, mother! oh, father! _why_ did you tempt me to such hypocrisy? _Why_did you not bring me up to walk at the plough-tail? _Then_ I should neverhave had to encounter the damnable snares of the pulpit! It was that whichruined me--the notion that I must take the minister for my pattern, andlive up to my idea of _him_, before even I had begun to cherish anythingreal in me! It was the road royal to hypocrisy! Without that rootless, worthless, devilish fancy, I might have been no worse than other people!Now I am lost! Now I shall never get back to bare honesty, not to sayinnocence! They are both gone for ever!"

The poor mother could only imagine it his humility that made him accusehimself of hypocrisy, and that because he had not fulfilled to theuttermost the smallest duty of his great office. 

"Jamie, dear, " she cried, laying her cheek to his, "ye maun cast yer careupo' Him that careth for ye! He kens ye hae dene yer best--or if no yervera best--for wha daur say that?--ye hae at least dene what ye could!"

"Na, na!" he answered, resuming the speech of his boyhood--a far bettersign of him than his mother understood, "I ken ower muckle, and that muckleower weel, to lay sic a flattering unction to my sowl! It's jist as blackas the fell mirk! 'Ah, limed soul, that, struggling to be free, art moreengaged!'"

"Hoots, ye're dreamin, laddie! Ye never was engaged to onybody--at leastthat ever I h'ard tell o'! But, ony gait, fash na ye aboot that! Gien it beonything o' sic a natur that's troublin ye, yer father and me we s' get yeclear o' 't!"

"Ay, there ye're at it again! It was _you_ 'at laid the bird-lime! Ye ayetuik pairt, mither, wi' the muckle deil that wad na rist till he had mysowl in his deepest pit!"

"The Lord kens his ain: he'll see that they come throuw unscaumit!"

"The Lord disna mak ony hypocreet o' purpose doobtless; but gien a man sinefter he has ance come to the knowledge o' the trowth, there remaineth forhim--ye ken the lave o' 't as weel as I dee mysel, mother! My only houplies in a doobt--a doobt, that is, whether I _had_ ever come til aknowledge o' the trowth--or hae yet!--Maybe no!"

"Laddie, ye're no i' yer richt min'. It's fearsome to hearken til ye!"

"It'll be waur to hear me roarin wi' the rich man i' the lowes o' hell!"

"Peter! Peter!" cried Marion, driven almost to distraction, "here's yer ainson, puir fallow, blasphemin like ane o' the condemned! He jist gars mecreep!"

Receiving no answer, for her husband was nowhere near at the moment, shecalled aloud in her desperation--

"Isy! Isy! come and see gien ye can dee onything to quaiet this ill bairn. "

Isy heard, and sprang from her bed. 

"Comin, mistress!" she answered; "comin this moment. "

They had not met since her resurrection, as Peter always called it. 

"Isy! Isy!" cried James, the moment he heard her approaching, "come andhand the deil aff o' me!"

He had risen to his elbow, and was looking eagerly toward the door. 

She entered. James threw wide his arms, and with glowing eyes clasped herto his bosom. She made no resistance: his mother would lay it all to thefever! He broke into wild words of love, repentance, and devotion. 

"Never heed him a hair, mem; he's clean aff o' his heid!" she said in a lowvoice, making no attempt to free herself from his embrace, but treating himlike a delirious child. "There maun be something aboot me, mem, thatquaiets him a bit! It's the brain, ye ken, mem! it's the het brain! Wemaunna contre him! he maun hae his ain w'y for a wee!"

But such was James's behaviour to Isy that it was impossible for the mothernot to perceive that, incredible as it might seem, this must be far fromthe first time they had met; and presently she fell to examining her memorywhether she herself might not have seen Isy before ever she came toStonecross; but she could find no answer to her inquiry, press the questionas she might. By and by, her husband came in to have his dinner, andfinding herself compelled, much against her will, to leave the twotogether, she sent up Eppie to take Isy's place, with the message that shewas to go down at once. Isy obeyed, and went to the kitchen; but, perturbedand trembling, dropped on the first chair she came to. The farmer, alreadyseated at the table, looked up, and anxiously regarding her, said--

"Bairn, ye're no fit to be aboot! Ye maun caw canny, or ye'll be ower theburn yet or ever ye're safe upo' this side o' 't! Preserve's a'! ir we tolowse ye twise in ae month?"

"Jist answer me ae queston, Isy, and I'll speir nae mair, " said Marion. 

"Na, na, never a queston!" interposed Peter;--"no ane afore even theshaidow o' deith has left the hoose!--Draw ye up to the table, my bonnybairn: this isna a time for ceremony, and there's sma' room for that onyday!"

Finding, however, that she sat motionless, and looked far more death-likethan while in her trance, he got up, and insisted on her swallowing alittle whisky; when she revived, and glad to put herself under his nearerprotection, took the chair he had placed for her beside him, and made afutile attempt at eating. "It's sma' won'er the puir thing hasna muckleeppiteet, " remarked Mrs. Blatherwick, "considerin the w'y yon ravin laddieup the stair has been cairryin on til her!"

"What! Hoo's that?" questioned her husband with a start. 

"But ye're no to mak onything o' that, Isy!" added her mistress. 

"Never a particle, mem!" returned Isy. "I ken weel it stan's for naethingbut the heat o' the burnin brain! I'm richt glaid though, that the sicht o'me did seem to comfort him a wee!"

"Weel, I'm no sae sure!" answered Marion. "But we'll say nae mair anentthat the noo! The guidman says no; and his word's law i' this hoose. "

Isy resumed her pretence of breakfast. Presently Eppie came down, and goingto her master, said--

"Here's An'ra, sir, come to speir efter the yoong minister and Isy: am I togar him come in?"

"Ay, and gie him his brakfast, " shouted the farmer. 

The old woman set a chair for her son by the door, and proceeded to attendto him. James was left alone. 

Silence again fell, and the appearance of eating was resumed, Peter beingthe only one that made a reality of it. Marion was occupied with manythinkings, specially a growing doubt and soreness about Isy. The hussy hada secret! She had known something all the time, and had been takingadvantage of her unsuspiciousness! It would be a fine thing for her, indeed, to get hold of the minister! but she would see him dead first! Itwas too bad of the Robertsons, whom she had known so long and trusted somuch! They knew what they were doing when they passed their trash upon her!She began to distrust ministers! What right had they to pluck brands fromthe burning at the expense o' dacent fowk! It was to do evil that goodmight come! She would say that to their faces! Thus she sat thinking andglooming. 

A cry of misery came from the room above. Isy started to her feet. ButMarion was up before her. 

"Sit doon this minute, " she commanded. 

Isy hesitated. 

"Sit doon this moment, I tell ye!" repeated Marion imperiously. "Ye hae nobusiness there! I'm gaein til 'im mysel!" And with the word she left theroom. 

Peter laid down his spoon, then half rose, staring bewildered, and followedhis wife from the room. 

"Oh my baby! my baby!" cried Isy, finding herself alone. "If only I had youto take my part! It was God gave you to me, or how could I love you so? Andthe mistress winna believe that even I had a bairnie! Noo she'll be sayin Ikillt my bonny wee man! And yet, even for _his_ sake, I never ance wisht yehadna been born! And noo, whan the father o' 'im's ill, and cryin oot forme, they winna lat me near 'im!"

The last words left her lips in a wailing shriek. 

Then first she saw that her master had reentered. Wiping her eyeshurriedly, she turned to him with a pitiful, apologetic smile. 

"Dinna be sair vext wi' me, sir: I canna help bein glaid that I had him, and to tyne him has gien me an unco sair hert!"

She stopped, terrified: how much had he heard? she could not tell what shemight not have said! But the farmer had resumed his breakfast, and went oneating as if she had not spoken. He had heard nearly all she said, and nowsat brooding on her words. 

Isy was silent, saying in her heart--"If only he loved me, I should becontent, and desire no more! I would never even want him to say it! I wouldbe so good to him, and so silent, that he could not help loving me alittle!"

I wonder whether she would have been as hopeful had she known how hismother had loved him, and how vainly she had looked for any love in return!And when Isy vowed in her heart never to let James know that she had bornehim a son, she did not perceive that thus she would withhold the mostpotent of influences for his repentance and restoration to God and hisparents. She did not see James again that night; and before she fellasleep at last in the small hours of the morning, she had made up her mindthat, ere the same morning grew clear upon the moor, she would, as the onlything left her to do for him, be far away from Stonecross. She would goback to Deemouth, and again seek work at the paper-mills!

CHAPTER XXIV

She woke in the first of the gray dawn, while the house was in utterstillness, and rising at once, rose and dressed herself with soundlesshaste. It was hard indeed to go and leave James thus in danger, but she hadno choice! She held her breath and listened, but all was still. She openedher door softly; not a sound reached her ear as she crept down the stair. She had neither to unlock nor unbolt the door to leave the house, for itwas never made fast. A dread sense of the old wandering desolation cameback upon her as she stepped across the threshold, and now she had no babyto comfort her! She was leaving a mouldy peace and a withered love behindher, and had once more to encounter the rough coarse world! She feared themoor she had to cross, and the old dreams she must there encounter; and asshe held on her way through them, she felt, in her new loneliness, and theslow-breaking dawn, as if she were lying again in her trance, partlyconscious, but quite unable to move, thinking she was dead, and waiting tobe buried. Then suddenly she knew where she was, and that God was not gone, but her own Maker was with her, and would not forsake her. 

Of the roads that led from the farm she knew only that by which Mr. Robertson had brought her, and that would guide her to the village wherethey had left the coach: there she was sure to find some way of returningto Deemouth! Feeble after her prolonged inaction, and the crowd of emotionssucceeding her recovery, she found the road very weary, and long ere shereached Tiltowie, she felt all but worn out. At the only house she had cometo on the way, she stopped and asked for some water. The woman, the onlyperson she had seen, for it was still early morning, and the road was alonely one, perceived that she looked ill, and gave her milk instead. Inthe strength of that milk she reached the end of her first day's journey;and for many days she had not to take a second. 

Now Isy had once seen the soutar at the farm, and going about her work hadheard scraps of his conversation with the mistress, when she had beengreatly struck by certain things he said, and had often since wished forthe opportunity of a talk with him. That same morning then, going along anarrow lane, and hearing a cobbler's hammer, she glanced through a windowclose to the path, and at once recognized the soutar. He looked up as sheobscured his light, and could scarce believe his eyes when, so early inthe day, he saw before him Mistress Blatherwick's maid, concerning whomthere had been such a talk and such a marvelling for weeks. She lookedill, and he was amazed to see her about so soon, and so far from home. Shesmiled to him feebly, and passed from his range with a respectful nod. Hesprang to his feet, bolted out, and overtook her at once. 

"I'm jist gaein to drop my wark, mem, and hae my brakfast: wull ye no comein and share wi' an auld man and a yoong lass? Ye hae come a gey bit, andluik some fatiguit!"

"Thank ye kindly, sir, " returned Isy. "I _am_ a bit tired!--But I won'er yekenned me!"

"Weel, I canna jist say I ken ye by the name fowk ca' ye; and still lessdiv I ken ye by the name the Lord ca's ye; but nowther maitters muckle toher that kens He has a name growin for her--or raither, a name she's growintil! Eh, what a day will that be whan ilk habitant o' the holy city 'illtramp the streets o' 't weel kenned and weel kennin!"

"Ay, sir! I 'maist un'erstan' ye ootricht, for I h'ard ye ance sayinsomething like that to the mistress, the nicht ye broucht hame themaister's shune to Stanecross. And, eh, I'm richt glaid to see ye again!"

They were already in the house, for she had followed him in almostmechanically; and the soutar was setting for her the only chair there was, when the cry of a child reached their ears. The girl started to her feet. Arosy flush of delight overspread her countenance; she fell a-trembling fromhead to foot, and it seemed uncertain whether she would succeed in runningto the cry, or must fall to the floor. 

"Ay, " exclaimed the soutar, with one of his sudden flashes of unquestioninginsight, "by the luik o' ye, ye ken that for the cry o' yer ain bairn, mybonny lass! Ye'll hae been missin him, sair, I doobt!--There! sit ye doon, and I'll hae him i' yer airms afore ae meenut!"

She obeyed him and sat down, but kept her eyes fixed on the door, wildlyexpectant. The soutar made haste, and ran to fetch the child. When hereturned with him in his arms, he found her sitting bolt upright, with herhands already apart, held out to receive him, and her eyes alive as he hadnever seen eyes before. 

"My Jamie! my ain bairn!" she cried, seizing him to her bosom with a graspthat, trembling, yet seemed to cling to him desperately, and a look almostof defiance, as if she dared the world to take him from her again. "O myGod!" she cried, in an agony of thankfulness, "I ken ye noo! I ken ye noo!Never mair wull I doobt ye, my God!--Lost and found!--Lost for a wee, andfound again for ever!"

Then she caught sight of Maggie, who had entered behind her father, andstood staring at her motionless, --with a look of gladness indeed, but notall of gladness. 

"I ken fine, " Isy broke out, with a trembling, yet eager, apologetic voice, "ye're grudgin me ilka luik at him! I ken't by mysel! Ye're thinkin himmair yours nor mine! And weel ye may, for it's you that's been motherin himever since I lost my wits! It's true I ran awa' and left him; but ever sin'syne, I hae soucht him carefully wi' tears! And ye maunna beir me ony illwill--for there!" she added, holding him out to Maggie! "I haena kissedhim yet!--no ance!--But ye wull lat me kiss him afore ye tak him awa'?--myain bairnie, whause vera comin I had prepared shame for!--Oh my God!--Buthe kens naething aboot it, and winna ken for years to come! And nane buthis ain mammie maun brak the dreid trowth til him!--and by that time he'lllo'e her weel eneuch to be able to bide it! I thank God that I haena had toshue the birds and the beasts aff o' his bonny wee body! It micht haebeen, but for you, my bonnie lass!--and for you, sir!" she went on, turningto the soutar. 

Maggie caught the child from her offering arms, and held up his little facefor his mother to kiss; and so held him until, for the moment, Isy'smother-greed was satisfied. Then she sat down with him in her lap, and Isystood absorbed in regarding him. At last she said, with a deep sigh--

"Noo I maun awa', and I dinna ken hoo I'm to gang! I hae found him and maunleave him!--but I houp no for vera lang!--Maybe ye'll keep him yet awhilie--say for a week mair? He's been sae lang disused til a wan'erinlife, that I doobt it mayna weel agree wi' him; and I maun awa' back toDeemooth, gien I can get onybody to gie me a lift. "

"Na, na; that'll never dee, " returned Maggie, with a sob. "My father'll beglaid eneuch to keep him; only we hae nae richt ower him, and ye maun haehim again whan ye wull. "

"Ye see I hae nae place to tak him til!" pleaded Isy. 

"Gien ye dinna want him, gie him to me: I want him!" said Maggie eagerly. 

"Want him!" returned Isy, bursting into tears; "I hae lived but upo thebare houp o' gettin him again! I hae grutten my een sair for the sicht o''im! Aften hae I waukent greetin ohn kenned for what!--and noo ye tell me Idinna want him, 'cause I hae nae spot but my breist to lay his heid upo!Eh, guid fowk, keep him till I get a place to tak him til, and syne haudnahim a meenute frae me!"

All this time the soutar had been watching the two girls with a divine lookin his black eyes and rugged face; now at last he opened his mouth andsaid:

"Them 'at haps the bairn, are aye sib _(related)_ to the mither!--Gang benthe hoose wi' Maggie, my dear; and lay ye doon on her bed, and she'll laythe bairnie aside ye, and fess yer brakfast there til ye. Ye winna be easyto sair _(satisfy)_, haein had sae little o' 'im for sae lang!--Lea' themthere thegither, Maggie, my doo, " he went on with infinite tenderness, "andcome and gie me a han' as sune as ye hae maskit the tay, and gotten a lofo' white breid. I s' hae my parritch a bit later. "

Maggie obeyed at once, and took Isy to the other end of the house, wherethe soutar had long ago given up his bed to her and the baby. 

When they had all breakfasted, the soutar and Maggie in the kitchen, andIsy and the bairnie in the ben en', Maggie took her old place beside herfather, and for a long time they worked without word spoken. 

"I doobt, father, " said Maggie at length, "I haena been atten'in til yeproperly! I fear the bairnie 's been garrin me forget ye!"

"No a hair, dautie!" returned the soutar. "The needs o' the little arestude aye far afore mine, and _had_ to be seen til first! And noo that wehae the mither o' 'im, we'll get on faumous!--Isna she a fine cratur, andricht mitherlike wi' the bairn? That was a' I was concernt aboot! We'll gether story frae her or lang, and syne we'll ken a hantle better hoo to helpher on! And there can be nae fear but, atween you and me, and the Michty atthe back o' 's, we s' get breid eneuch for the quaternion o' 's!"

He laughed at the odd word as it fell from his mouth and the Acts ofApostles. Maggie laughed too, and wiped her eyes. 

Before long, Maggie recognized that she had never been so happy in herlife. Isy told them as much as she could without breaking her resolve tokeep secret a certain name; and wrote to Mr. Robertson, telling him whereshe was, and that she had found her baby. He came with his wife to seeher, and so a friendship began between the soutar and him, which Mr. Robertson always declared one of the most fortunate things that had everbefallen him. 

"That soutar-body, " he would say, "kens mair aboot God and his kingdom, thehert o' 't and the w'ys o' 't, than ony man I ever h'ard tell o'--and_that_ heumble!--jist like the son o' God himsel!"

Before many days passed, however, a great anxiety laid hold of the littlehousehold: wee Jamie was taken so ill that the doctor had to be summoned. For eight days he had much fever, and his appealing looks were pitiful tosee. When first he ceased to run about, and wanted to be nursed, no onecould please him but the soutar himself, and he, at once discarding hiswork, gave himself up to the child's service. Before long, however, herequired defter handling, and then no one would do but Maggie, to whom hehad been more accustomed; nor could Isy get any share in the labour of loveexcept when he was asleep: as soon as he woke, she had to encounter thepain of hearing him cry out for Maggie, and seeing him stretch forth hishands, even from his mother's lap, to one whom he knew better than her. ButMaggie was very careful over the poor mother, and would always, the minutehe was securely asleep, lay him softly upon her lap. And Maggie soon got sohigh above her jealousy, that one of the happiest moments in her life waswhen first the child consented to leave her arms for those of his mother. And when he was once more able to run about, Isy took her part with Maggiein putting hand and needle to the lining of the more delicate of thesoutar's shoes. 

CHAPTER XXV

There was great concern, and not a little alarm at Stonecross because ofthe disappearance of Isy. But James continued so ill, that his parents wereunable to take much thought about anybody else. At last, however, the feverleft him, and he began to recover, but lay still and silent, seeming totake no interest in anything, and remembered nothing he had said, or eventhat he had seen Isy. At the same time his wakened conscience was still atwork in him, and had more to do with his enfeebled condition than theprolonged fever. At length his parents were convinced that he had somethingon his mind that interfered with his recovery, and his mother wasconfident that it had to do with "that deceitful creature, Isy. " To learnthat she was safe, might have given Marion some satisfaction, had she notknown her refuge so near the manse; and having once heard where she was, she had never asked another question about her. Her husband, however, having overheard certain of the words that fell from Isy when she thoughtherself alone, was intently though quietly waiting for what must follow. 

"I'm misdoobtin sair, Peter, " began Marion one morning, after a long talkwith the cottar's wife, who had been telling her of Isy's having taken upher abode with the soutar, "I'm sair misdoobtin whether that hizzie hadnamair to dee nor we hae been jaloosin, wi Jamie's attack, than the merescare he got. It seems to me he's lang been broodin ower something we kennoucht aboot. "

"That would be nae ferlie, woman! Whan was it ever we kent onything gaeinon i' that mysterious laddie! Na, but his had need be a guid conscience, for did ever onybody ken eneuch aboot it or him to say richt or wrang til'im! But gien ye hae a thoucht he's ever wranged that lassie, I s' hae thetrowth o' 't, gien it cost him a greitin! He'll never come to health o'body or min' till he's confest, and God has forgien him. He maun confess!He maun confess!"

"Hoot, Peter, dinna be sae suspicious o' yer ain. It's no like ye to be saemaisterfu' and owerbeirin. I wad na lat ae ill thoucht o' puir Jeemieinside this auld heid o' mine! It's the lassie, I'll tak my aith, it's thatIsy's at the bothom o' 't!"

"Ye're some ready wi' yer aith, Mirran, to what ye ken naething aboot! Isay again, gien he's dene ony wrang to that bonnie cratur--and it wudna takower muckle proof to convince me o' the same, he s' tak his stan', ministeror no minister, upo the stele o' repentance!"

"Daur ye to speyk that gait aboot yer ain son--ay, and mine the mair gien_ye_ disown him, Peter Bletherwick!--and the Lord's ain ordeent ministerforbye!" cried Marion, driven almost to her wits' end, but more by thepersistent haunting of her own suspicion, which she could not repress, thanthe terror of her husband's threat. "Besides, dinna ye see, " she addedcunningly, "that that would be to affront the lass as weel?--_He_ wadna bethe first to fa' intil the snare o' a designin wuman, and wad it be for hisain father to expose him to public contemp? _Your_ pairt sud be to cover uphis sin--gien it were a multitude, and no ae solitary bit faut!"

"Daur _ye_ speyk o' a thing like that as a bit faut?--Ca' ye leein andhypocrisy a bit faut? I alloo the sin itsel mayna be jist damnable, but towhat bouk mayna it come wi ither and waur sins upo the back o' 't?--Wileein, and haudin aff o' himsel, a man may grow a cratur no fit to be taenup wi the taings! Eh me, but my pride i' the laddie! It 'ill be sma' pridefor me gien this fearsome thing turn oot to be true!"

"And wha daur say it's true?" rejoined Marion almost fiercely. 

"Nane but himsel; and gien it be sae, and he disna confess, the rod laidupon him 'ill be the rod o' iron, 'at smashes a man like a muckle crock. --Imaun tak Jamie throuw han' _(to task)_!"

"Noo jist tak ye care, Peter, 'at ye dinna quench the smokin flax. "

"I'm mair likly to get the bruised reed intil my nakit loof _(palm)_!"returned Peter. "But I s' say naething till he's a wee better, for wemaunna drive him to despair!--Eh gien he would only repent! What is there Iwadna dee to clear him--that is, to ken him innocent o' ony wrang til her!I wad dee wi thanksgivin!"

"Weel, I kenna that we're jist called upon sae far as that!" said Marion. "A lass is aye able to tak care o' hersel!"

"I wud! I wud!--God hae mercy upo' the twa o' them!"

In the afternoon James was a good deal better. When his father went in tosee him, his first words were--

"I doobt, father, I'm no likly to preach ony mair: I've come to see 'at Inever was fit for the wark, neither had I ever ony ca' til't. "

"It may be sae, Jeemie, " answered his father; "but we'll haud awa fraeconclusions till ye're better, and able to jeedge wi'oot the bias o' onythrawin distemper. "

"Oh father, " James went on, and to his delight Peter saw, for the firsttime since he was the merest child, tears running down his cheeks, now thinand wan; "Oh father, I hae been a terrible hypocreet! But my een's comeopen at last! I see mysel as I am!"

"Weel, there's God hard by, to tak ye by the han' like Enoch! Tell me, "Peter went on, "hae ye onything upo yer min', laddie, 'at ye wud like toconfess and be eased o'? There's nae papistry in confessin to yer ain auldfather!"

James lay still for a few moments; then he said, almost inaudibly--

"I think I could tell my mother better nor you, father. "

"It'll be a' ane whilk o' 's ye tell. The forgiein and the forgettin 'illbe ae deed--by the twa o' 's at ance! I s' gang and cry doon the stair tilyer mother to come up and hear ye. " For Peter knew by experience that goodmotions must be taken advantage of in their first ripeness. "We maunna trythe speerit wi ony delays!" he added, as he went to the head of the stair, where he called aloud to his wife. Then returning to the bedside, heresumed his seat, saying, "I'll jist bide a minute till she comes. "

He was loath to let in any risk between his going and her coming, for heknew how quickly minds may change; but the moment she appeared, he left theroom, gently closing the door behind him. 

Then the trembling, convicted soul plucked up what courage his so longstubborn and yet cringing heart was capable of, and began. 

"Mother, there was a lass I cam to ken in Edinburgh, whan I was a divinitystudent there, and--"

"Ay, ay, I ken a' aboot it!" interrupted his mother, eager to spare him;"--an ill-faured, designin limmer, 'at micht ha kent better nor come owerthe son o' a respectable wuman that gait!--Sic like, I doobtna, wad deceivethe vera elec'!"

"Na, na, mother, she was nane o' that sort! She was baith bonny and guid, and pleasant to the hert as to the sicht: she wad hae saved me gien I hadbeen true til her! She was ane o' the Lord's makin, as he has made butfeow!"

"Whatfor didna she haud frae ye till ye had merried her than? Dinna tell meshe didna lay hersel oot to mak a prey o' ye!"

"Mother, i' that sayin ye hae sclandert yersel!--I'll no say a word mair!"

"I'm sure neither yer father nor mysel wud hae stede i' yer gait!" saidMarion, retreating from the false position she had taken. 

She did not know herself, or how bitter would have been her opposition; forshe had set her mind on a distinguished match for her Jamie!

"God knows how I wish I had keepit a haud o' mysel! Syne I micht haesteppit oot o' the dirt o' my hypocrisy, i'stead o' gaein ower the heidintil't! I was aye a hypocrite, but she would maybe hae fun' me oot, andgarred me luik at mysel!"

He did not know the probability that, if he had not fallen, he would havebut sunk the deeper in the worst bog of all, self-satisfaction, and nonethe less have played her false, and left her to break her heart. 

If any reader of this tale should argue it better then to do wrong andrepent, than to resist the devil, I warn him, that in such case he will notrepent until the sorrows of death and the pains of hell itself lay holdupon him. An overtaking fault may be beaten with few stripes, but a wilfulwrong shall be beaten with many stripes. The door of the latter must share, not with Judas, for he did repent, although too late, but with such as havetaken from themselves the power of repentance. 

"Was there no mark left o' her disgrace?" asked his mother. "Wasna there abairn to mak it manifest?"

"Nane I ever heard tell o'. "

"In that case she's no muckle the waur, and ye needna gang lamentin: _she_'ll no be the ane to tell! and _ye_ maunna, for her sake! Sae tak yecomfort ower what's gane and dune wi', and canna come back, and maunnahappen again. --Eh, but it's a' God's-mercy there was nae bairn!"

Thus had the mother herself become an evil councillor, crying Peace! peace!when there was no peace, and tempting her son to go on and become a devil!But one thing yet rose up for the truth in his miserable heart--hisreviving and growing love for Isy. It had seemed smothered in selfishness, but was alive and operative: God knows how--perhaps through feverish, incoherent, forgotten dreams. 

He had expected his mother to aid his repentance, and uphold his walk inthe way of righteousness, even should the way be that of social disgrace. He knew well that reparation must go hand in hand with repentance wherethe All-wise was judge, and selfish Society dared not urge one despicablepretence for painting hidden shame in the hues of honour. James had beenthe cowering slave of a false reputation; but his illness and the assaultsof his conscience had roused him, set repentance before him, broughtconfession within sight, and purity within reach of prayer. 

"I maun gang til her, " he cried, "the meenute I'm able to be up!--Whaur isshe, mother?"

"Upo nae accoont see her, Jamie! It wad be but to fa' again intil hersnare!" answered his mother, with decision in her look and tone. "We're toabstain frae a' appearance o' evil--as ye ken better nor I can tell ye. "

"But Isy's no an appearance o' evil, mother!"

"Ye say weel there, I confess! Na, she's no an appearance; she's the verathing! Haud frae her, as ye wad frae the ill ane himsel. "

"Did she never lat on what there had been atween 's?"

"Na, never. She kenned weel what would come o' that!"

"What, mother?"

"The ootside o' the door. "

"Think ye she ever tauld onybody?"

"Mony ane, I doobtna. "

"Weel, I dinna believe 't, I hae nae fear but she's been dumb as deith!"

"Hoo ken ye that?--What for said she never ae word aboot ye til yer ainmither?"

"'Cause she was set on haudin her tongue. Was she to bring an owre truetale o' me to the vera hoose I was born in? As lang as I haud til mytongue, she'll never wag hers!--Eh, but she's a true ane! _She's_ ane tolippen til!"

"Weel, I alloo, she's deen as a wuman sud--the faut bein a' her ain!"

"The faut bein' a' mine, mother, she wouldna tell what would disgrace me!"

"She micht hae kenned her secret would be safe wi' me!"

"_I_ micht hae said the same, but for the w'y ye spak o' her this verameenut!--Whaur is she, mother? Whaur's Isy?"

"'Deed, she's made a munelicht flittin o' 't!"

"I telled ye she would never tell upo me!--Hed she ony siller?"

"Hoo can _I_ tell?"

"Did ye pey her ony wages?"

"She gae me no time!--But she's no likly to tell noo; for, hearin her tale, wha wad tak her in?"

"Eh, mother, but ye _are_ hard-hertit!"

"I ken a harder, Jamie!"

"That's me!--and ye're richt, mother! But, eh, gien ye wad hae me loe yefrae this meenut to the end o' my days, be but a wee fair to Isy: _I_ haebeen a damnt scoon'rel til her!"

"Jamie; Jamie! ye're provokin the Lord to anger--sweirin like that in hisvera face--and you a minister!"

"I provokit him a heap waur whan I left Isy to dree her shame! Divna yemin' hoo the apostle Peter cursed, whan he said to Simon, 'Gang to hell wi'yer siller!'"

"She's telt the soutar, onygait!"

"What! has _he_ gotten a hand o' her?"

"Ay, has he!--And dinna ye think it'll be a' ower the toon lang or this!"

"And hoo will ye meet it, mother?"

"We maun tell yer father, and get him to quaiet the soutar!--For _her_, wemaun jist stap her mou wi' a bunch o' bank-notts!"

"That wad jist mak it 'maist impossible for even her to forgie you or meaither ony langer!"

"And wha's she to speyk o' forgivin!"

The door opened, and Peter entered. He strode up to his wife, and stoodover her like an angel of vengeance. His very lips were white with wrath. 

"Efter thirty years o' merried life, noo first to ken the wife o' my boasomfor a messenger o' Sawtan!" he panted. "Gang oot o' my sicht, wuman!"

She fell on her knees, and held up her two hands to him. 

"Think o' Jamie, Peter!" she pleaded. "I wad tyne my sowl for Jamie!"

"Ay, and tyne his as weel!" he returned. "Tyne what's yer ain to tyne, wuman--and that's no your sowl, nor yet Jamie's! He's no yours to save, but ye're deein a' ye can to destroy him--and aiblins ye'll succeed! for yewad sen' him straucht awa to hell for the sake o' a guid name--a lee! ahypocrisy!--Oot upo ye for a Christian mither, Mirran!--Jamie, I'm awa tothe toon, upo my twa feet, for the mere's cripple: the vera deil's i' thehoose and the stable and a', it would seem!--I'm awa to fess Isy hame! And, Jamie, ye'll jist tell her afore me and yer mother, that as sene 's ye'reable to crawl to the kirk wi' her, ye'll merry her afore the warl', andtak her hame to the manse wi' ye!"

"Hoot, Peter! Wad ye disgrace him afore a' the beggars o' Tiltowie?"

"Ay, and afore God, that kens a'thing ohn onybody tellt him! Han's and hertI s' be clear o' this abomination!"

"Merry a wuman 'at was ta'en wi' a wat finger!--a maiden that never said_na_!--Merry a lass that's nae maiden, nor ever will be!--Hoots!"

"And wha's to blame for that?"

"Hersel. "

"Jeemie! Jist Jeemie!--I'm fair scunnert at ye, Mirran!--Oot o' my sicht, Itell ye!--Lord, I kenna hoo I'm to win ower 't!--No to a' eternity, Idoobt!"

He turned from her with a tearing groan, and went feeling for the opendoor, like one struck blind. 

"Oh, father, father!" cried James, "forgie my mither afore ye gang, or myhert 'ill brak. It's the awfu'est thing o' ony to see you twa striven!"

"She's no sorry, no ae bit sorry!" said Peter. 

"I am, I am, Peter!" cried Marion, breaking down at once, and utterly. "Deewhat ye wull, and I'll dee the same--only lat it be dene quaietly, 'ithootdin or proclamation! What for sud a'body ken a'thing! Wha has the richt tosee intil ither fowk's herts and lives? The wail' could ill gang on gienthat war the gait o' 't!"

"Father, " said James, "I thank God that noo ye ken a'! Eh, sic a weicht asit taks aff o' me! I'll be hale and weel noo in ae day!--I think I'll gangwi' ye to Isy, mysel!--But I'm a wee bit sorry ye cam in jist that minute!I wuss ye had harkit a wee langer! For I wasna giein-in to my mother; Iwas but thinkin hoo to say oot what was in me, ohn vext her waur norcouldna be helpit. Believe me, father, gien ye can; though I doobt sair yewinna be able!"

"I believe ye, my bairn; and I thank God I hae that muckle pooer o' beliefleft in me! I confess I was in ower great a hurry, and I'm sure ye wartakin the richt gait wi' yer puir mither. --Ye see she loed ye sae weel thatshe could think o' nae thing or body but yersel! That's the w'y o' mithers, Jamie, gien ye only kenned it! She was nigh sinnin an awfu sin for yoursake, man!"

Here he turned again to his wife. "That's what comes o' lovin the praise o'men, Mirran! Easy it passes intil the fear o' men, and disregaird o' theHoly!--I s' awa doon to the soutar, and tell him the cheenge that's comeower us a': he'll no be a hair surprised!"

"I'm ready, father--or will be in ae minute!" said James, making as if tospring out of bed. 

"Na, na; ye're no fit!" interposed his father. "I would hae to be takin yeupo my back afore we wis at the fut o' the brae!--Bide ye at hame, and keepyer mither company. "

"Ay, bide, Jamie; and I winna come near ye, " sobbed his mother. 

"Onything to please ye, mother!--but I'm fitter nor my father thinks, " saidJames as he settled down again in bed. 

So Peter went, leaving mother and son silent together. 

At last the mother spoke. 

"It's the shame o' 't, Jamie!" she said. 

"The shame was i' the thing itsel, mother, and in hidin frae that shame!"he answered. "Noo, I hae but the dregs to drink, and them I maun glog owerwi' patience, for I hae weel deserved to drink them!--But, eh, my bonnieIsy, she maun hae suffert sair!--I daur hardly think what she maun haecome throuw!"

"Her mither couldna hae broucht her up richt! The first o' the faut lay i'the upbringin!"

"There's anither whause upbringin wasna to blame: _my_ upbringin was a' itoucht to hae been--and see hoo ill _I_ turnt oot!"

"It wasna what it oucht! I see 't a' plain the noo! I was aye ower feart o'garrin ye hate me!--Oh, Isy, Isy, I hae dene ye wrang! I ken ye cud neverhae laid yersel oot to snare him--it wasna in ye to dee 't!"

"Thank ye, mother! It was, railly and truly, a' my wyte! And noo my lifesail gang to mak up til her!"

"And I maun see to the manse!" rejoined his mother. "--And first in ordero' a', that Jinse o' yours 'ill hae to gang!"

"As ye like, mother. But for the manse, I maun clear oot o' that! I'llspeak nae mair frae that poopit! I hae hypocreesit in 't ower lang! Thevera thoucht o' 't scunners me!"

"Speyk na like that o' the poopit, Jamie, whaur sae mony holy men hae stedeup and spoken the word o' God! It frichts me to hear ye! Ye'll be a burninand a shinin licht i' that poopit for mony a lang day efter we're deid andhame!"

"The mair holy men that hae there witnessed, the less daur ony livin leestan' there braggin and blazin i' the face o' God and man! It's shame o'mysel that gars me hate the place, mother! Ance and no more wull I stan'there, making o' 't my stele o' repentance; and syne doon the steps andawa, like Adam frae the gairden!"

"And what's to come o' Eve? Are ye gaein, like him, to say, 'The wuman thoogiedest til me--it was a' her wyte'?"

"Ye ken weel I'm takin a' the wyte upo mysel!"

"But hoo can ye tak it a', or even ony fair share o' 't, gien up there yestan' and confess? Ye maun hae some care o' the lass--that is, gien efterand a' ye're gaein to mak o' her yer wife, as ye profess. --And what are yegaein to turn yer han' til neist, seem ye hae a'ready laid it til thepleuch and turnt back?"

"To the pleuch again, mother--the rael pleuch this time! Frae the kirk doorI'll come hame like the prodigal to my father's hoose, and say til him, 'Set me to the pleuch, father. See gien I canna be something _like_ a sonto ye, efter a''!"

So wrought in him that mighty power, mysterious in its origin as marvellousin its result, which had been at work in him all the time he lay whelmedunder feverish phantasms. 

His repentance was true; he had been dead, and was alive again! God and theman had met at last! As to _how_ God turned the man's heart, Thou God, knowest. To understand that, we should have to go down below thefoundations themselves, underneath creation, and there see God send outfrom himself man, the spirit, distinguished yet never divided from God, the spirit, for ever dependent upon and growing in Him, never completed andnever ended, his origin, his very life being infinite; never outside ofGod, because _in_ him only he lives and moves and grows, and _has_ hisbeing. Brothers, let us not linger to ask! let us obey, and, obeying, askwhat we will! thus only shall we become all we are capable of being; thusonly shall we learn all we are capable of knowing! The pure in heart shallsee God; and to see him is to know all things. 

Something like this was the meditation of the soutar, as he saw the farmerstride away into the dusk of the gathering twilight, going home with gladheart to his wife and son. 

Peter had told the soutar that his son was sorely troubled because of a sinof his youth and its long concealment: now he was bent on all thereparation he could make. "Mr. Robertson, " said Peter, "broucht the lass tooor hoose, never mentionin Jamie, for he didna ken they war onything tilane anither; and for her, she never said ae word aboot him to Mirran orme. "

The soutar went to the door, and called Isy. She came, and stood humblybefore her old master. 

"Weel, Isy, " said the farmer kindly, "ye gied 's a clever slip yon morningand a gey fricht forbye! What possessed ye, lass, to dee sic a thing?"

She stood distressed, and made no answer. 

"Hoot, lassie, tell me!" insisted Peter; "I haena been an ill maister tilye, have I?"

"Sir, ye hae been like the maister o' a' til me! But I canna--that is, Imaunna--or raither, I'm determined no to explain the thing til onybody. "

"Thoucht ye my wife was feart the minister micht fa' in love wi ye?"

"Weel, sir, there micht hae been something like that intil 't! But I wantitsair to win at my bairn again; for i' that trance I lay in sae lang, I sawor h'ard something I took for an intimation that he was alive, and no thatfar awa. --And--wad ye believe't, sir?--i' this vera hoose I fand him, andhere I hae him, and I'm jist as happy the noo as I was meeserable afore!Is 't ill o' me at I _canna_ be sorry ony mair?"

"Na, na, " interposed the soutar: "whan the Lord wad lift the burden, it wadbe baith senseless and thankless to grup at it! In His name lat it gang, lass!"

"And noo, " said Mr. Blatherwick, again taking up his probe, "ye hae but aething left to confess--and that's wha's the father o' 'im!"

"Na, I canna dee that, sir; it's enough that I have disgracet _myself_! Youwouldn't have me disgrace another as well! What good would that be?"

"It wad help ye beir the disgrace. "

"Na, no a hair, sir; _he_ cudna stan' the disgrace half sae weel 's me! Ireckon the man the waiker vessel, sir; the woman has her bairn to fend for, and that taks her aff o' the shame!"

"Ye dinna tell me he gies ye noucht to mainteen the cratur upo?"

"I tell ye naething, sir. He never even kenned there _was_ a bairn!"

"Hoot, toot! ye canna be sae semple! It's no poassible ye never loot himken!"

"'Deed no; I was ower sair ashamit! Ye see it was a' my wyte!--and it wasnaebody's business! My auntie said gien I wouldna tell, I micht put thedoor atween 's; and I took her at her word; for I kenned weel _she_ couldnakeep a secret, and I wasna gaein to hae _his_ name mixed up wi' a lasslike mysel! And, sir, ye maunna try to gar me tell, for I hae no richt, andsurely ye canna hae the hert to gar me!--But that ye _sanna_, ony gait!"

"I dinna blame ye, Isy! but there's jist ae thing I'm determined upo--andthat is that the rascal sail merry ye!"

Isy's face flushed; she was taken too much at unawares to hide her pleasureat such a word from _his_ mouth. But the flush faded, and presently Mr. Blatherwick saw that she was fighting with herself, and getting the betterof that self. The shadow of a pawky smile flitted across her face as sheanswered--

"Surely ye wouldna merry me upon a rascal, sir! Ill as I hae behaved tilye, I can hardly hae deservit that at yer han'!"

"That's what he'll hae to dee though--jist merry ye aff han'! I s' _gar_him. "

"I winna hae him garred! It's me that has the richt ower him, and noanither, man nor wuman! He sanna be garred! What wad ye hae o' me--thinkinI would tak a man 'at was garred! Na, na; there s' be nae garrin!--And yecanna gar _him_ merry me gien _I_ winna hae him! The day's by for that!--Agarred man! My certy!--Na, I thank ye!"

"Weel, my bonny leddy, " said Peter, "gien I had a prence to my son, --providit he was worth yer takin--I wad say to ye, 'Hae, my leddy!'"

"And I would say to you, sir, 'No--gien he bena willin, '" answered Isy, andran from the room. 

"Weel, what think ye o' the lass by this time, Mr. Bletherwick?" said thesoutar, with a flash in his eye. 

"I think jist what I thoucht afore, " answered Peter: "she's ane amo' amillion!"

"I'm no that sure aboot the proportion!" returned MacLear. "I doobt yemicht come upo twa afore ye wan throw the million!--A million's a heap o'women!"

"All I care to say is, that gien Jeemie binna ready to lea' father andmother and kirk and steeple, and cleave to that wuman and her only, he's noa mere gomeril, but jist a meeserable, wickit fule! and I s' never speykword til 'im again, wi my wull, gien I live to the age o' auld Methuselah!"

"Tak tent what ye say, or mint at sayin, to persuaud him:--Isy 'ill be upoye!" said the soutar laughing. "--But hearken to me, Mr. Bletherwick, andsayna a word to the minister aboot the bairnie. "

"Na, na; it'll be best to lat him fin' that oot for himsel. --And noo I maunbe gaein, for I hae my wallet fu'!"

He strode to the door, holding his head high, and with never a word more, went out. The soutar closed the door and returned to his work, saying aloudas he went, "Lord, lat me ever and aye see thy face, and noucht mair will Idesire--excep that the haill warl, O Lord, may behold it likewise. Theprayers o' the soutar are endit!"

Peter Blatherwick went home joyous at heart. His son was his son, and novillain!--only a poor creature, as is every man until he turns to the Lord, and leaves behind him every ambition, and all care about the judgment ofmen. He rejoiced that the girl he and Marion had befriended would be astrength to his son: she whom his wife would have rejected had provedherself indeed right noble! And he praised the father of men, that the verybackslidings of those he loved had brought about their repentance anduplifting. 

"Here I am!" he cried as he entered the house. "I hae seen the lassie ancemair, and she's better and bonnier nor ever!"

"Ow ay; ye're jist like a' the men I ever cam across!" rejoined Marionsmiling; "--easy taen wi' the skin-side!"

"Doobtless: the Makker has taen a heap o' pains wi the skin!--Ony gait, yonlassie's ane amang ten thoosan! Jeemie sud be on his k-nees til her thisvera moment--no sitting there glowerin as gien his twa een war twa bullets--fired aff, but never won oot o' their barrels!"

"Hoot! wad ye hae him gang on his k-nees til ony but the Ane!"

"Aye wad I--til ony ane that's nearer His likness nor himsel--and thatane's oor Isy!--I wadna won'er, Jeemie, gien ye war fit for a drive themorn! In that case, I s' caw ye doon to the toon, and lat ye say yer ainsay til her. "

James did not sleep much that night, and nevertheless was greatly betterthe next day--indeed almost well. 

Before noon they were at the soutar's door. The soutar opened it himself, and took the minister straight to the ben-end of the house, where Isy satalone. She rose, and with downcast eyes went to meet him. 

"Isy, " he faltered, "can ye forgie me? And wull ye merry me as sene's everwe can be cried?--I'm as ashamed o' mysel as even ye would hae me!"

"Ye haena sae muckle to be ashamet o' as _I_ hae, sir: it was a' my wyte!"

"And syne no to haud my face til't!--Isy, I hae been a scoonrel til ye! I'mthat disgustit at mysel 'at I canna luik ye i' the face!"

"Ye didna ken whaur I was! I ran awa that naebody micht ken. "

"What rizzon was there for onybody to ken? I'm sure ye never tellt!"

Isy went to the door and called Maggie. James stared after her, bewildered. 

"There was this rizzon, " she said, re-entering with the child, and layinghim in James's arms. 

He gasped with astonishment, almost consternation. 

"Is this mine?" he stammered. 

"Yours and mine, sir, " she replied. "Wasna God a heap better til me nor Ideserved?--Sic a bonnie bairn! No a mark, no a spot upon him frae heid tofut to tell that he had no business to be here!--Gie the bonnie wee man akiss, Mr. Blatherwick. Haud him close to ye, sir, and he'll tak the painoot o' yer heart: aften has he taen 't oot o' mine--only it aye camagain!--He's yer ain son, sir! He cam to me bringin the Lord'sforgiveness, lang or ever I had the hert to speir for 't. Eh, but we maundee oor best to mak up til God's bairn for the wrang we did him afore hewas born! But he'll be like his great Father, and forgie us baith!"

As soon as Maggie had given the child to his mother, she went to herfather, and sat down beside him, crying softly. He turned on his leatherstool, and looked at her. 

"Canna ye rejice wi' them that rejice, noo that ye hae nane to greit wi', Maggie, my doo?" he said. "Ye haena lost ane, and ye hae gaint twa! Haudnathe glaidness back that's sae fain to come to the licht i' yer grudginhert, Maggie! God himsel 's glaid, and the Shepherd's glaid, and the angelsare a' makin sic a flut-flutter wi' their muckle wings 'at I can 'maistsee nor hear for them!"

Maggie rose, and stood a moment wiping her eyes. The same instant the dooropened, and James entered with the little one in his arms. He laid him witha smile in Maggie's. 

"Thank you, sir!" said the girl humbly, and clasped the child to her bosom;nor, after that, was ever a cloud of jealousy to be seen on her face. Iwill not say she never longed or even wept after the little one, whom shestill regarded as her very own, even when he was long gone away with hisfather and mother; indeed she mourned for him then like a mother from whomdeath has taken away her first-born and only son; neither did she see muchdifference between the two forms of loss; for Maggie felt in her heart thatlife nor death could destroy the relation that already existed betweenthem: she could not be her father's daughter and not understand that!Therefore, like a bereaved mother, she only gave herself the more to herfather. 

I will not dwell on the delight of James and Isobel, thus restored to eachother, the one from a sea of sadness, the other from a gulf of perdition. The one had deserved many stripes, the other but a few: needful measure hadbeen measured to each; and repentance had brought them together. 

Before James left the house, the soutar took him aside, and said--

"Daur I offer ye a word o' advice, sir?"

"'Deed that ye may!" answered the young man with humility: "and I dinna seehoo it can be possible for me to hand frae deein as ye tell me; for you andmy father and Isy atween ye, hae jist saved my vera sowl!"

"Weel, what I wad beg o' ye is, that ye tak no further step o' onyconsequence, afore ye see Maister Robertson, and mak him acquant wi thehaill affair. "

"I'm vera willin, " answered James; "and I doobtna Isy 'ill be content. "

"Ye may be vera certain, sir, that she'll be naething but pleased: she hasa gran' opingon, and weel she may, o' Maister Robertson. Ye see, sir, Iwant ye to put yersels i' the han's o' a man that kens ye baith, and thehalf o' yer story a'ready--ane, that is, wha'll jeedge ye truly andmercifully, and no condemn ye affhan'. Syne tak his advice what ye oucht todee neist. "

"I will--and thank you, Mr. MacLear! Ae thing only I houp--that naitheryou, sir, nor he will ever seek to pursuaud me to gang on preachin. Aething I'm set upon, and that is, to deliver my sowl frae hypocrisy, andwalk softly a' the rest o' my days! Happy man wad I hae been, had they setme frae the first to caw the pleuch, and cut the corn, and gether thestooks intil the barn--i'stead o' creepin intil a leaky boat to fish formen wi' a foul and tangled net! I'm affrontit and jist scunnert at mysel!--Eh, the presumption o' the thing! But I hae been weel and richteouslypunished! The Father drew his han' oot o' mine, and loot me try to gang mylane; sae doon I cam, for I was fit for naething but to fa': naething lesscould hae broucht me to mysel--and it took a lang time! I houp Mr. Robertson will see the thing as I dee mysel!--Wull I write and speir himoot to Stanecross to advise wi my father aboot Isy? That would bring him!There never was man readier to help!--But it's surely my pairt to gang to_him_, and mak my confession, and boo til his judgment!--Only I maun tellIsy first!"

Isy was not only willing, but eager that Mr. And Mrs. Robertson should knoweverything. 

"But be sure, " she added, "that you let them know you come of yourself, and I never asked you. "

Peter said he could not let him go alone, but must himself go with him, forhe was but weakly yet--and they must not put it off a single day, lestanything should transpire and be misrepresented. 

The news which father and son carried them, filled the Robertsons with morethan pleasure; and if their reception of him made James feel the repentantprodigal he was, it was by its heartiness, and their jubilation over Isy. 

The next Sunday, Mr. Robertson preached in James's pulpit, and publishedthe banns of marriage between James Blatherwick and Isobel Rose. The twofollowing Sundays he repeated his visit to Tiltowie for the same purpose;and on the Monday married them at Stonecross. Then was also the little onebaptized, by the name of Peter, in his father's arms--amid much gladness, not unmingled with shame. The soutar and his Maggie were the only friendspresent besides the Robertsons. 

Before the gathering broke up, the farmer put the big Bible in the hands ofthe soutar, with the request that he would lead their prayers; and this wasvery nearly what he said:--"O God, to whom we belang, hert and soul, bodyand blude and banes, hoo great art thou, and hoo close to us, to hand thericht ower us o' sic a gran' and fair, sic a just and true ownership! Webless thee hertily, rejicin in what thoo hast made us, and still mair inwhat thoo art thysel! Tak to thy hert, and hand them there, these thy twarepentant sinners, and thy ain little ane and theirs, wha's innocent asthoo hast made him. Gie them sic grace to bring him up, that he be nanethe waur for the wrang they did him afore he was born; and lat theknowledge o' his parents' faut haud him safe frae onything siclike! and maythey baith be the better for their fa', and live a heap the mair to theglory o' their Father by cause o' that slip! And gien ever the ministershould again preach thy word, may it be wi' the better comprehension, andthe mair fervour; and to that en' gie him to un'erstan' the hicht anddeepth and breid and len'th o' thy forgivin love. Thy name be gloryfeed!Amen!"

"Na, na, I'll never preach again!" whispered James to the soutar, as theyrose from their knees. 

"I winna be a'thegither sure o' that!" returned the soutar. "Doobtlessye'll dee as the Spirit shaws ye!"

James made no answer, and neither spoke again that night. 

The next morning, James sent to the clerk of the synod his resignation ofhis parish and office. 

No sooner had Marion, repentant under her husband's terrible rebuke, setherself to resist her rampant pride, than the indwelling goodness swelledup in her like a reviving spring, and she began to be herself again, herold and lovely self. Little Peter, with his beauty and his winsome ways, melted and scattered the last lingering rack of her fog-like ambition forher son. Twenty times in a morning would she drop her work to catch up andcaress her grandchild, overwhelming him with endearments; while over thereturn of his mother, her second Isy, now her daughter indeed, she soonbecame jubilant. 

From the first publication of the banns, she had begun cleaning and settingto rights the parlour, meaning to make it over entirely to Isy and James;but the moment Isy discovered her intent, she protested obstinately: itshould not, could not, must not be! The very morning after the wedding shewas down in the kitchen, and had put the water on the fire for theporridge before her husband was awake. Before her new mother was down, orher father-in-law come in from his last preparations for the harvest, itwas already boiling, and the table laid for breakfast. 

"I ken weel, " she said to her mother, "that I hae no richt to contre ye;but ye was glaid o' my help whan first I cam to be yer servan-lass; andwhat for shouldna things be jist the same noo? I ken a' the w'ys o' theplace, and that they'll lea' me plenty o' time for the bairnie: ye maunjist lat me step again intil my ain auld place! and gien onybody comes, itwinna tak me a minute to mak mysel tidy as becomes the minister's wife!--Only he says that's to be a' ower noo, and there'll be no need!"

With that she broke into a little song, and went on with her work, singing. 

At breakfast, James made request to his father that he might turn a certainunused loft into a room for Isy and himself and little Peter. His fathermaking no objection, he set about the scheme at once, but was interruptedby the speedy advent of an exceptionally plentiful harvest. 

The very day the cutting of the oats began, James appeared on the fieldwith the other scythe-men, prepared to do his best. When his father came, however, he interfered, and compelled him to take the thing easier, because, unfit by habit and recent illness, it would be even dangerous forhim to emulate the others. But what delighted his father even more than hisgood-will, was the way he talked with the men and women in the field: everyshow of superiority had vanished from his bearing and speech, and he wassimply himself, behaving like the others, only with greater courtesy. 

When the hour for the noonday meal arrived, Isy appeared with her mother-in-law and old Eppie, carrying their food for the labourers, and leadinglittle Peter in her hand. For a while the whole company was enlivened bythe child's merriment; after which he was laid with his bottle in theshadow of an overarching stook, and went to sleep, his mother watching him, while she took her first lesson in gathering and binding the sheaves. Whenhe woke, his grandfather sent the whole family home for the rest of theday. 

"Hoots, Isy, my dauty, " he said, when she would fain have continued herwork, "wad ye mak a slave-driver o' me, and bring disgrace upo the name o'father?"

Then at once she obeyed, and went with her husband, both of them tiredindeed, but happier than ever in their lives before. 

CHAPTER XXVI

The next morning James was in the field with the rest long before the sunwas up. Day by day he grew stronger in mind and in body, until at length hewas not only quite equal to the harvest-work, but capable of anythingrequired of a farm servant. 

His deliverance from the slavery of Sunday prayers and sermons, and hisconsequent sense of freedom and its delight, greatly favoured his growth inhealth and strength. Before the winter came, however, he had begun to findhis heart turning toward the pulpit with a waking desire after utterance. For, almost as soon as his day's work ceased to exhaust him, he had begunto take up the study of the sayings and doings of the Lord of men, full ofeagerness to verify the relation in which he stood toward him, and, throughhim, toward that eternal atmosphere in which he lived and moved and had hisbeing, God himself. 

One day, with a sudden questioning hunger, he rose in haste from his knees, and turned almost trembling to his Greek Testament, to find whether thewords of the Master, "If any man will do the will of the Father, " meant "Ifany man _is willing_ to do the will of the Father;" and finding that justwhat they did mean, he was thenceforward so far at rest as to go on askingand hoping; nor was it then long before he began to feel he had somethingworth telling, and must tell it to any that would hear. And heartily hebetook himself to pray for that spirit of truth which the Lord had promisedto them that asked it of their Father in heaven. 

He talked with his wife about what he had found; he talked with his fatherabout it; he went to the soutar, and talked with him about it. 

Now the soutar had for many years made a certain use of his Sundays, bywhich he now saw he might be of service to James: he went four miles intothe country to a farm on the other side of Stonecross, to hold there aSunday-school. It was the last farm for a long way in that direction:beyond it lay an unproductive region, consisting mostly of peat-mosses, and lone barren hills--where the waters above the firmament were butimperfectly divided from the waters below the firmament. For there rootsof the hills coming rather close together, the waters gathered and mademarshy places, with here and there a patch of ground on which crops couldbe raised. There were, however, many more houses, such as they were, thancould have been expected from the appearance of the district. In one spot, indeed, not far from the farm I have mentioned, there was a small, thinhamlet. A long way from church or parish-school, and without any, nearerthan several miles, to minister to the spiritual wants of the people, itwas a rather rough and ignorant place, with a good many superstitions--none of them in their nature specially mischievous, except indeed as theyblurred the idea of divine care and government--just the country forbogill-baes and brownie-baes, boodies and water-kelpies to linger anddisport themselves, long after they had elsewhere disappeared!

When, therefore, the late minister came seeking his counsel, the soutarproposed, without giving any special reason for it, that he shouldaccompany him the next Sunday afternoon, to his school at Bogiescratt; andJames consenting, the soutar undertook to call for him at Stonecross on hisway. 

"Mr. MacLear, " said James, as they walked along the rough parish roadtogether, "I have but just arrived at a point I ought to have reachedbefore even entertaining a thought of opening my mouth upon anythingbelonging to religion. Perhaps I knew some little things _about_ religion;certainly I knew nothing _of_ religion; least of all had I made anydiscovery for myself _in_ religion; and before that, how can a manunderstand or know anything whatever concerning it? Even now I may bepresuming, but now at last, if I may dare to say so, I do seem to havebegun to recognize something of the relation between a man and the God whomade him; and with the sense of that, as I ventured to hint when I saw youlast Friday, there has risen in my mind a desire to communicate to myfellow-men something of what I have seen and learned. One thing I dare tohope--that, at the first temptation to show-off, I shall be made aware ofmy danger, and have the grace given me to pull up. And one thing I haveresolved upon--that, if ever I preach again, I will never again write asermon. I know I shall make many blunders, and do the thing very badly; butfailure itself will help to save me from conceit--will keep me, I hope, from thinking of myself at all, enabling me to leave myself in God'shands, willing to fail if he please. Don't you think, Mr. MacLear, we mayeven now look to God for what we ought to say, as confidently as if, likethe early Christians, we stood accused before the magistrates?" "I divthat, Maister Jeames!" answered the soutar. "Hide yersel in God, sir, andoot o' that secret place, secret and safe, speyk--and fear naething. Andnever ye mint at speykin _doon_ to your congregation. Luik them straucht i'the een, and say what at the moment ye think and feel; and dinna hesitateto gie them the best ye hae. "

"Thank you, thank you, sir! I think I understand, " replied James. --"If everI speak again, I should like to begin in your school!"

"Ye sall--this vera nicht, gien ye like, " rejoined the soutar. "I think yehae something e'en noo upo yer min' 'at ye would like to say to them--butwe'll see hoo ye feel aboot it efter I hae said a word to them first!"

"When you have said what you want to say, Mr. MacLear, give me a look; andif I _have_ anything to say, I will respond to your sign. Then you canintroduce me, saying what you will. Only dinna spare me; use me after yourjudgment. "

The soutar held out his hand to his disciple, and they finished theirjourney in silence. 

When they reached the farm-house, the small gathering was nearly complete. It was mostly of farm-labourers; but a few of the congregation worked in aquarry, where serpentine lay under the peat. In this serpentine occurredveins of soapstone, occasionally of such a thickness as to be itself theobject of the quarrier: it was used in the making of porcelain; and smallquantities were in request for other purposes. 

When the soutar began, James was a little shocked at first to hear him usehis mother-tongue as in his ordinary conversation; but any sense of itsunsuitableness vanished presently, and James soon began to feel that thevernacular gave his friend additional power of expression, and therewith ofpersuasion. 

"My frien's, I was jist thinkin, as I cam ower the hill, " he began, "hoo wewar a' made wi' differin pooers--some o' 's able to dee ae thing best, andsome anither; and that led me to remark, that it was the same wi' the warlwe live in--some pairts o' 't fit for growin aits, and some bere, and somewheat, or pitatas; and hoo ilk varyin rig had to be turnt til its ain besteese. We a' ken what a lot o' eeses the bonny green-and-reid-mottlet marblecan be put til; but it wadna do weel for biggin hooses, specially gienthere war mony streaks o' saipstane intil 't. Still it's no 'at thesaipstane itsel's o' nae eese, for ye ken there's a heap o' eeses it can beput til. For ae thing, the tailor taks a bit o' 't to mark whaur he's tosen' the shears alang the claith, when he's cuttin oot a pair o' breeks;and again they mix't up wi the clay they tak for the finer kin's o'crockery. But upo' the ither han' there's ae thing it's eesed for by some, 'at canna be considert a richt eese to mak o' 't: there's ae wull tribe inAmerica they tell me o', 'at ait a hantle o' 't--and that's a thing Ican_not_ un'erstan'; for it diz them, they say, no guid at a', 'cep, maybe, it be jist to fill-in the toom places i' their stammacks, puir reidcraturs, and haud their ribs ohn stucken thegither--and maybe that's jistwhat they ait it for! Eh, but they maun be sair hungert afore they tak tilthe vera dirt! But they're only savage fowk, I'm thinkin, 'at hae hardlybegun to be men ava!

"Noo ye see what I'm drivin' at? It's this--that things hae aye to be putto their richt eeses! But there are guid eeses and better eeses, and thingscanna _aye_ be putten to their _best_ eeses; only, whaur they can, it's ashame to put them to ony ither but their best! Noo, what's the best eese o'a man?--what's a man made for? The carritchis (_catechism_) says, _Toglorifee God_. And hoo is he to dee that? Jist by deein the wull o' God. For the ae perfec' man said he was born intil the warl for that ae specialpurpose, to dee the wull o' him that sent him. A man's for a heap o' eeses, but that ae eese covers them a'. Whan he's deein' the wull o' God, he'sdeein jist a'thing. 

"Still there are vahrious wy's in which a man can be deein the wull o' hisFather in h'aven, and the great thing for ilk ane is to fin' oot the bestw'y _he_ can set aboot deein that wull. 

"Noo here's a man sittin aside me that I maun help set to the best eesehe's fit for--and that is, tellin ither fowk what he kens aboot the Godthat made him and them, and stirrin o' them up to dee what He would haethem dee. The fac is, that the man was ance a minister o' the Kirk o'Scotlan'; but whan he was a yoong man, he fell intil a great faut:--ayoong man's faut--I'm no gaein to excuse 't--dinna think it!--Only Ichairge ye, be ceevil til him i' yer vera thouchts, rememberin hoo monythings ye hae dene yersels 'at ye hae to be ashamit o', though some o'them may never hae come to the licht; for, be sure o' this, he has repentitricht sair. Like the prodigal, he grew that ashamit o' what he had dene, that he gied up his kirk, and gaed hame to the day's darg upon his father'sferm. And that's what he's at the noo, thof he be a scholar, and that aripe ane! And by his repentance he's learnt a heap that he didna ken afore, and that he couldna hae learnt ony ither w'y than by turnin wi' shame fraethe path o' the transgressor. I hae broucht him wi' me this day, sirs, totell ye something--he hasna said to me what--that the Lord in his mercyhas tellt him. I'll say nae mair: Mr. Bletherwick, wull ye please tell'swhat the Lord has putten it intil yer min' to say?"

The soutar sat down; and James got up, white and trembling. For a moment ortwo he was unable to speak, but overcoming his emotion, and falling at onceinto the old Scots tongue, he said--

"My frien's, I hae little richt to stan' up afore ye and say onything; for, as some o' ye ken, if no afore, at least noo, frae what my frien' thesoutar has jist been tellin ye, I was ance a minister o' the kirk, but upona time I behavet mysel that ill, that, whan I cam to my senses, I saw itmy duty to withdraw, and mak room for anither to tak up my disgracetbishopric, as was said o' Judas the traitor. But noo I seem to hae gottensome mair licht, and to ken some things I didna ken afore; sae, turnin myback upo' my past sin, and believin God has forgien me, and is willin I sudset my han' to his pleuch ance mair, I hae thoucht to mak a new beginninhere in a quaiet heumble fashion, tellin ye something o' what I hae begoud, i' the mercy o' God, to un'erstan' a wee for mysel. Sae noo, gien yellturn, them o' ye that has broucht yer buiks wi' ye, to the saeventhchapter o' John's gospel, and the saeventeenth verse, ye'll read wi me whatthe Lord says there to the fowk o Jerus'lem: _Gien ony man be wullin todee His wull, he'll ken whether what I tell him comes frae God, or whetherI say 't only oot o' my ain heid_. Luik at it for yersels, for that's whatit says i' the Greek, the whilk is plainer than the English to them thatun'erstan' the auld Greek tongue: Gien onybody _be wullin_ to dee the wullo' God, he'll ken whether my teachin comes frae God, or I say 't o' mysel. "

From that he went on to tell them that, if they kept trusting in God, anddoing what Jesus told them, any mistake they made would but help them thebetter to understand what God and his son would have them do. The Lord gavethem no promise, he said, of knowing what this or that man ought to do; butonly of knowing what the man himself ought to do. And he illustrated thisby the rebuke the Lord gave Peter when, leaving inquiry into the will ofGod that he might do it, he made inquiry into the decree of God concerninghis friend that he might know it; seeking wherewithal, not to prophesy, butto foretell. Then he showed them the difference between the meaning of theGreek word, and that of the modern English word _prophesy_. 

The little congregation seemed to hang upon his words, and as they weregoing away, thanked him heartily for thus talking to them. 

That same night as James and the soutar were going home together, they wereovertaken by an early snowstorm, and losing their way, were in the danger, not a small one, of having to pass the night on the moor. But happily, thefarmer's wife, in whose house was their customary assembly, had, as theywere taking their leave, made the soutar a present of some onion bulbs, ofa sort for which her garden was famous: exhausted in conflict with thefreezing blast, they had lain down, apparently to die before the morning, when the soutar bethought himself of the onions; and obeying their nearernecessity, they ate instead of keeping them to plant; with the result thatthey were so refreshed, and so heartened for battle with the wind andsnow, that at last, in the small hours of the morning, they reached home, weary and nigh frozen. 

All through the winter, James accompanied the soutar to his Sunday-school, sometimes on his father's old gig-horse, but oftener on foot. His fatherwould occasionally go also; and then the men of Stonecross began to go, with the cottar and his wife; so that the little company of them graduallyincreased to about thirty men and women, and about half as many children. In general, the soutar gave a short opening address; but he always made"the minister" speak; and thus James Blatherwick, while encountering manyhidden experiences, went through his apprenticeship to extempore preaching;and, hardly knowing how, grew capable at length of following out a train ofthought in his own mind even while he spoke, and that all the surer fromthe fact that, as it rose, it found immediate utterance; and at the sametime it was rendered the more living and potent by the sight of the eagerfaces of his humble friends fixed upon him, as they drank in, sometimeseven anticipated, the things he was saying. He seemed to himself at timesalmost to see their thoughts taking reality and form to accompany himwhither he led them; while the stream of his thought, as it disappearedfrom his consciousness and memory, seemed to settle in the minds of thosewho heard him, like seed cast on open soil--some of it, at least, to growup in resolves, and bring forth fruit. And all the road as the friendsreturned, now in moonlight, now in darkness and rain, sometimes in wind andsnow, they had such things to think of and talk about, that the way neverseemed long. Thus dwindled by degrees Blatherwick's self-reflection andself-seeking, and, growing divinely conscious, he grew at the same timedivinely self-oblivious. Once, upon such a home-coming, as his wife washelping him off with his wet boots, he looked up in her face and said--

"To think, Isy, that here am I, a dull, selfish creature, so long desiringonly for myself knowledge and influence, now at last grown able to feel inmy heart all the way home, that I took every step, one after the other, only by the strength of God in me, caring for me as my own making father!--Ken ye what I'm trying to say, Isy, my dear?"

"I canna be a'thegither certain I un'erstan', " answered his wife; "but I'llkeep thinkin aboot it, and maybe I'll come til't!"

"I can desire no more, " answered James, "for until the Lord lat ye see athing, hoo can you or I or onybody see the thing that _he_ maun see first!And what is there for us to desire, but to see things as God sees them, andwould hae us see them? I used to think the soutar a puir fule body whan hewas sayin the vera things I'm tryin to say noo! I saw nae mair what he wasefter than that puir collie there at my feet--maybe no half sae muckle, forwha can tell what he mayna be thinkin, wi' that far awa luik o' his!"

"Div ye think, Jeames, that ever we'll be able to see inside thae doggies, and ken what they're thinkin?"

"I wouldna won'er what we mayna come til; for ye ken Paul says, 'A' thingsare yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's!' Wha can tell but thevera herts o' the doggies may ae day lie bare and open to _oor_ herts, asto the hert o' Him wi' whom they and we hae to do! Eh, but the thouchts o'a doggie maun be a won'erfu' sicht! And syne to think o' the thouchts o'Christ aboot that doggie! We'll ken them, I daurna weel doobt, some day!I'm surer aboot that nor aboot kennin the thouchts o' the doggie himsel!"

Another Sunday night, having come home through a terrible storm of thunderand lightning, he said to Isy--

"I hae been feelin, a' the w'y hame, as gien, afore lang, I micht hae togie a wider testimony. The apostles and the first Christians, ye see, hadto beir testimony to the fac' that the man that was hangt and dee'd upothe cross, the same was up again oot o' the grave, and gangin aboot thewarl; noo I canna beir testimony to that, for I wasna at that time awaur o'onything; but I might weel be called upon to beir testimony to the fac'that, whaur ance he lay deid and beeried, there he's come alive at last--that is, i' the sepulchre o' my hert! For I hae seen him noo, and ken himnoo--the houp o' glory in my hert and my life! Whatever he said ance, thatI believe for ever. "

The talks James Blatherwick and the soutar had together, were now, according to Mr. Robertson, even wonderful. But it was chiefly the soutarthat spoke, while James sat and listened in silence. On one occasion, however, James had spoken out freely, and indeed eloquently; and Mr. Robertson, whom the soutar accompanied to his inn that night, had said tohim ere they parted--

"Do you see any good and cogent reason, Mr. MacLear, why this man shouldnot resume his pastoral office?"

"One thing at least I am sure of, " answered the soutar, "--that he is farfitter for it than ever he was in his life before. "

Mr. Robertson repeated this to James the next day, adding--

And I am certain every one who knows you will vote the restoration of yourlicence!"

"I must speak to Isy about it, " answered James with simplicity. 

"That is quite right, of course, " rejoined Mr. Robertson: "you know I tellmy wife everything that I am at liberty to tell. "

"Will not some public recognition of my reinstatement be necessary?"suggested James. 

"I will have a talk about it with some of the leaders of the synod, and letyou know what they say, " answered Mr. Robertson. 

"Of course I am ready, " returned Blatherwick, "to make any publicconfession judged necessary or desirable; but that would involve my wife;and although I know perfectly that she will be ready for anything requiredof her, it remains not the less my part to do my best to shield her!"

"Of one thing I think you may be sure--that, with our present moderator, your case will be handled with more than delicacy--with tenderness!"

"I must not doubt it; but for myself I would deprecate indulgence. I musthave a talk with my wife about it! She is sure to know what will be best!"

"My advice is to leave it all in the hands of the moderator. We have noright to choose, appoint, or apportion our own penalties!"

James went home and laid the whole matter before his wife. 

Instead of looking frightened, or even anxious, Isy laid little Petersoftly in his crib, threw her arms round James's neck, and cried--

"Thank God, my husband, that you have come to this! Don't think to leave meout, I beg of you. I am more than ready to accept my shame. I have alwayssaid _I_ was to blame, and not you! It was me that should have knownbetter!"

"You trusted me, and I proved quite unworthy of your confidence!--But hadever man a wife to be so proud of as I of you!"

Mr. Robertson brought the matter carefully before the synod; but neitherJames nor Isy ever heard anything more of it--except the announcement ofthe cordial renewal of James's licence. This was soon followed by the offerof a church in the poorest and most populous parish north of the Tweed. 

"See the loving power at the heart of things, Isy!" said James to his wife:"out of evil He has brought good, the best good, and nothing but good!--agood ripened through my sin and selfishness and ambition, bringing upon youas well as me disgrace and suffering! The evil in me had to come out andshow itself, before it could be cleared away! Some people nothing but anearthquake will rouse from their dead sleep: I was one of such. God in Hismercy brought on the earthquake: it woke me and saved me from death. Ignorant creatures go about asking why God permits evil: _we_ know why! Itmay be He could with a word cause evil to cease--but would that be tocreate good? The word might make us good like oxen or harmless sheep, butwould that be a goodness worthy of him who was made in the image of God? Ifa man ceased to be _capable_ of evil, he must cease to be a man! What wouldthe goodness be that could not help being good--that had no choice in thematter, but must be such because it was so made? God chooses to be good, else he would not be God: man must choose to be good, else he cannot be theson of God! Herein we see the grand love of the Father of men--that hegives them a share, and that share as necessary as his own, in the makingof themselves! Thus, and thus only, that is, by willing the good, can theybecome 'partakers of the divine nature!' Satan said, 'Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil!' God says, 'Ye shall be as gods, knowing good andevil, and choosing the good. ' For the sake of this, that we may come tochoose the good, all the discipline of the world exists. God is teachingus to know good and evil in some real degree _as they are_, and not as_they seem to the incomplete_; so shall we learn to choose the good andrefuse the evil. He would make his children see the two things, good andevil, in some measure as they are, and then say whether they will be goodchildren or not. If they fail, and choose the evil, he will take yetharder measures with them. If at last it should prove possible for acreated being to see good and evil as they are, and choose the evil, then, and only then, there would, I presume, be nothing left for God but to sethis foot upon him and crush him, as we crush a noxious insect. But God isdeeper in us than our own life; yea, God's life is the very centre andcreative cause of that life which we call _ours_; therefore is the Life inus stronger than the Death, in as much as the creating Good is strongerthan the created Evil. "

THE END